A day after Senate Republicans blocked a bill combining emergency government funding with an increase in the nation’s borrowing limit, Democratic leaders are planning to split up the two provisions and pass them separately in a bid to prevent a partial government shutdown this week.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters Tuesday that Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are in discussions to pass legislation to provide stopgap spending to keep the government operating.
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The fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, and Congress must act to provide temporary spending to avoid a partial shutdown.
“We need to fund the government, and we are talking right now about what is the best strategy to get that done,” the Maryland Democrat said.
Senate Republicans blocked legislation Monday that combined government funding with a debt limit increase after warning Democrats for weeks that they were opposed to pairing the two measures.
Republicans won’t back the debt ceiling increase and want it decoupled from the government funding bill. They say new borrowing authority will be used to pay for a massive social welfare spending package Democrats are plotting to pass unilaterally later this year. Republicans are arguing Democrats should pass the debt limit increase on their own.
The move has forced Democrats to break up the package and try to pass at least the government funding bill by itself due to the looming Thursday deadline.
Democrats have a little more time to deal with the debt ceiling.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers she will run out of money to pay the nation’s bills by Oct. 18.
Hoyer said top House Democrats are discussing whether the Senate will pass the government funding bill first and then send it to the House. The package defeated in the Senate would have funded government operations through Dec. 3.
“We need to move forward,” Hoyer said. “I’m sure sometime today we are going to make the determination as to what would be the most viable option and whether the Senate will send us back something we can pass.”
House Democrats may also take up a stand-alone bill to increase the debt limit this week, which Hoyer said would serve as “a message bill,” because Republicans are likely to block it in the Senate.
The debt ceiling, even if considered in stand-alone legislation, faces the same hurdle in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass most legislation. Republicans will likely vote to block the measure a second time.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called on Democrats to attach a debt limit increase to their massive social welfare spending package, which they plan to pass with 51 votes using a budgetary tactic called reconciliation.
Hoyer said that might be the path Democrats end up using to pass a debt ceiling increase.
“Reconciliation is one option, and that’s on the table,” Hoyer said. “There are other options.”
Hoyer accused Republicans and McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, of trying to score political points by refusing to vote to raise the debt limit.
Democrats are hoping to pressure the GOP politically by pinning the blame on their party for the looming fiscal crisis that would result if the Treasury could not pay the nation’s bills.
Democrats hope to counter the GOP messaging that the debt limit needs to be increased to fund the liberal wish list items in the social welfare spending package, which could come with a price tag as high as $3.5 trillion.
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Democrats argue much of the debt was incurred under the Trump administration, in part due to lower revenues following the GOP tax cut legislation.
“McConnell’s strategy is to have all Democrats vote for it so he can demagogue untruthfully that it is Democrats who created this debt,” Hoyer said. That’s baloney, and he knows it.”
