Senate Republicans on Monday evening blocked new moves by the President Joe Biden’s administration to fund the government and suspend the debt ceiling, thereby making real their earlier threat to not deliver votes for a Democratic measure to raise government’s borrowing limit.
At the end of the voting, 48 Senators opposed the move while 50 supported. Sixty votes were needed to advance the measure.
The failure by the Democrats to garner 60 votes in support of the proposal marked a huge setback for President Biden’s fiscal plan over how to fund the government and deal with the debt ceiling.
The debt ceiling deal kicked back in on August 1 this year with the Treasury Department using “extraordinary measures” since then to keep the government solvent.
According to legislative rules, Congress has until the end of Thursday to pass a government funding bill to avoid a shutdown the following day but the deadline for needing to deal with the country’s borrowing limit is less definite.
In her remarks, Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, has warned congressional leadership they might need to take action as soon as next month.
But then, Democratic leaders have are yet to unveil what their next line of action will be, but they are vowing to prevent a shutdown on their watch.
Analysts believe that in order to deliver on that promise, they’ll need Republican Senators’ cooperation to speed up a government funding bill.
During the process, Senate Majority Leader, Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), initially voted to start debate but switched his vote in a procedural move that allows him to easily bring the measure back up for consideration.
He explained: “I changed my vote from yes to no in order to reserve the option of additional action on the House-passed legislation. Keeping the government open and preventing a default is vital to our country’s future and we’ll be taking further action to prevent this from happening this week.”
News reports on the fiscal saga indicate that if the Democrats punt the debt fight for now, they have options on funding the government, either sticking with the Dec. 3 end date or going with a bill to try to line it up with the potential “x” date in the coming weeks when Congress will have to address the debt ceiling.
“Well, I don’t want to shut down the government,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), while noting Schumer has the final say on strategy.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had told reporters late last week that “we will keep our government open by Sept. 30, which is our date, and continue the conversation about the debt ceiling, but not for long.”
Meanwhile, the Republicans had warned for months, including just hours before Monday’s vote, that they won’t help Democrats raise or suspend the debt ceiling. Democrats voted with Republicans during the Trump administration to suspend the debt ceiling as part of larger funding packages.
Speaking on the matter, Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said: “For more than two months now Senate Republicans have been completely clear about how this process will play out.
“So let me make it abundantly clear one more time, we will support a clean continuing resolution that will prevent a government shutdown. …We will not provide Republican votes for raising the debt ceiling”, the lawmaker added.
McConnell and other GOP senators tried to bring up a short-term funding bill without the debt hike but Democrats blocked the attempt and tried to ramp up pressure on Republicans, warning that by shooting down the House-passed bill they are pushing the country closer to a default.
Analysts noted that though the US government had never defaulted in its debt obligations, a similar standoff in 2011 resulted in S&P stripping the country of its long time AAA credit rating.
