Senate passes bill to raise debt ceiling into early December
Source: Washington Post
The Senate late Thursday adopted a short-term measure to raise the country’s debt ceiling into early December, a move that could pull the federal government back from the fiscal brink even though it risked reigniting the high-stakes battle at the end of the year. Lawmakers adopted the proposal strictly along party lines, with Democrats voting to lift the country’s borrowing cap by $480 billion and Republicans maintaining their steadfast opposition to it. The divide persisted even amid repeated warnings from President Biden this week that inaction threatened to plunge the country into a new recession.
Republicans on Thursday did supply some of the votes necessary to advance the measure over key procedural hurdles in the otherwise deadlocked Senate. But even that task proved to be a significant political undertaking for GOP leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who faced criticism from his own members simply for making a deal with Democrats. The resolution would end a tense few weeks of partisan warfare, which saw Democrats try repeatedly to suspend the country’s debt ceiling into 2022 — only to falter at the hands of GOP objections. McConnell led the blockade as part of the party’s broader campaign against Biden’s spending agenda, including a still-forming package of up to $3.5 trillion in spending that GOP lawmakers vehemently oppose.
But McConnell backed down late Wednesday, offering Democrats a temporary, roughly two-month reprieve. Republicans ultimately provided the 10 votes that Democrats needed to conclude debate a day later, though GOP lawmakers soon after voted against the actual increase to the debt ceiling itself. In ultimately allowing the measure to pass, some Republicans ignored a last-minute call to scuttle the deal by former President Donald Trump, who issued a statement shortly before the vote that blasted McConnell. With a short-term solution in hand, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) hailed the development on the Senate floor late Thursday as a critical step toward “avoiding a first-ever, Republican-manufactured default on the national debt.”
“Republicans played a dangerous and risky partisan game,” he added, “and I am glad that their brinkmanship did not work.” With a House vote expected soon, the measure is poised to head off a financial crisis with only days to spare ahead of the original Oct. 18 deadline. Failing to raise the debt ceiling by that date would have left the U.S. government unable to fulfill its financial obligations — including paying Social Security benefits to seniors, providing tax aid to families with children, or offering pay and other assistance to troops and veterans.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/10/07/senate-deal-debt-ceiling/
= new reply since forum marked as read
A couple of extra months to make seniors dependent upon Social Security worry & wonder if they will be homeless or have money for holidays.
