The House and Senate are in a sort of holding pattern Tuesday, moving toward potentially getting a lot of stuff done on dealing with the impending debt ceiling deadline and President Joe Biden’s big family and climate bill, but not necessarily achieving much. The House has made room for all kinds of action on its schedule for the day, but it’s all listed as “possible”—“possible consideration of the FY22 National Defense Authorization Act,” and “possible consideration of legislation related to the debt limit.” Meanwhile, the Senate will churn through a few nominations, including Jessica Rosenworcel at the FCC. So at least something critical is happening.
Leadership is considering Dec. 15 the drop-dead date for getting the debt ceiling hiked or suspended, and seem pretty confident that they can deal with it this week, well before the deadline. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would like to dispense with it ASAP, as he has a packed agenda to try to wrap up before Christmas. Whether Republicans will help with that is in question, since it is in their interest to create as many roadblocks as possible to Democrats achieving any of their goals.
While Schumer is bullish about the progress he’s made in working on some kind of agreement with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, how they achieve getting this done when pretty much every Republican is on record saying they are to going to help Democrats pay the bills the country has previously accrued remains a mystery. Schumer said Tuesday morning, “Over the past few days, we have made good progress on this issue, and I’m optimistic that we will be able to prevent the awful prospect of the U.S. defaulting on its sovereign debt for the first time ever.” McConnell added, “The country is never going to default.” He said that Monday night. “We frequently have drama associated with this decision. But I can assure you the country will never default.”
Democrats have three options for getting it done under consideration. The first is to straight-up put a debt ceiling measure in the defense bill in the House. The problem with that is numbers on both sides of the aisle. The first time the bill passed in the House in September, 38 Democrats voted against it because the bill is so bloated. It passed with Republican votes because Republicans always vote for defense bills—but they don’t want to help pay the country’s bill, and House Republican leadership is officially against doing so.
The second option is for the House to pass a bill allowing the Senate—for one time only—to allow the debt ceiling to be raised with a simple majority of 51 votes. However, that bill would have to face a filibuster in the Senate and get a 60 vote majority. So to pay the nation’s bills and prevent the global economy from a meltdown kicked off by the USA defaulting, Democrats have to get Republican permission by enacting a law. And right now, getting 10 Republicans to help seems questionable.
Yes, this is all horribly contorted and ridiculous. There is a third option—the House would pass the defense authorization bill without the debt ceiling add-on, but they would also pass a rule that would add that Senate process bill—the one-time only 51-vote debt ceiling bill—to the defense bill once it had passed in the House. However, that would still require 60 votes in the Senate to advance, so it could potentially be approved with just 51 votes.
There are obvious alternatives. The Senate Republicans could decline to filibuster the debt ceiling hike and let Democrats pass it on their own. That will be the endpoint anyway—Democrats will save the world without any help from Republicans. Or, Democrats could cut through all the Republican bullshit and end the filibuster, either entirely once and for all, or with a special carve-out for the debt ceiling.
If Schumer really wants to get through the big stack of legislative priorities he’s lined up before Christmas—defense authorization, Build Back Better, voting rights, as well as nominations—breaking the filibuster is the cleanest, quickest way. But it requires Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to see just how ridiculous the Senate is right now largely because of the two of them, and to agree.
In the meantime, the rigamarole of creating a special process in a bill that has to pass the House and get 60 votes in the Senate so the Senate can accomplish paying the bills with just 51 votes appears to be - what they’ve settled on. But lord knows the integrity and majesty of the Senate has to be retained by keeping the filibuster.
Leadership is considering Dec. 15 the drop-dead date for getting the debt ceiling hiked or suspended, and seem pretty confident that they can deal with it this week, well before the deadline. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would like to dispense with it ASAP, as he has a packed agenda to try to wrap up before Christmas. Whether Republicans will help with that is in question, since it is in their interest to create as many roadblocks as possible to Democrats achieving any of their goals.
While Schumer is bullish about the progress he’s made in working on some kind of agreement with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, how they achieve getting this done when pretty much every Republican is on record saying they are to going to help Democrats pay the bills the country has previously accrued remains a mystery. Schumer said Tuesday morning, “Over the past few days, we have made good progress on this issue, and I’m optimistic that we will be able to prevent the awful prospect of the U.S. defaulting on its sovereign debt for the first time ever.” McConnell added, “The country is never going to default.” He said that Monday night. “We frequently have drama associated with this decision. But I can assure you the country will never default.”
Democrats have three options for getting it done under consideration. The first is to straight-up put a debt ceiling measure in the defense bill in the House. The problem with that is numbers on both sides of the aisle. The first time the bill passed in the House in September, 38 Democrats voted against it because the bill is so bloated. It passed with Republican votes because Republicans always vote for defense bills—but they don’t want to help pay the country’s bill, and House Republican leadership is officially against doing so.
The second option is for the House to pass a bill allowing the Senate—for one time only—to allow the debt ceiling to be raised with a simple majority of 51 votes. However, that bill would have to face a filibuster in the Senate and get a 60 vote majority. So to pay the nation’s bills and prevent the global economy from a meltdown kicked off by the USA defaulting, Democrats have to get Republican permission by enacting a law. And right now, getting 10 Republicans to help seems questionable.
Yes, this is all horribly contorted and ridiculous. There is a third option—the House would pass the defense authorization bill without the debt ceiling add-on, but they would also pass a rule that would add that Senate process bill—the one-time only 51-vote debt ceiling bill—to the defense bill once it had passed in the House. However, that would still require 60 votes in the Senate to advance, so it could potentially be approved with just 51 votes.
There are obvious alternatives. The Senate Republicans could decline to filibuster the debt ceiling hike and let Democrats pass it on their own. That will be the endpoint anyway—Democrats will save the world without any help from Republicans. Or, Democrats could cut through all the Republican bullshit and end the filibuster, either entirely once and for all, or with a special carve-out for the debt ceiling.
If Schumer really wants to get through the big stack of legislative priorities he’s lined up before Christmas—defense authorization, Build Back Better, voting rights, as well as nominations—breaking the filibuster is the cleanest, quickest way. But it requires Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to see just how ridiculous the Senate is right now largely because of the two of them, and to agree.
In the meantime, the rigamarole of creating a special process in a bill that has to pass the House and get 60 votes in the Senate so the Senate can accomplish paying the bills with just 51 votes appears to be - what they’ve settled on. But lord knows the integrity and majesty of the Senate has to be retained by keeping the filibuster.