Senate Republicans battling plans to pass a massive social welfare spending package blocked Democrats for the second time this week from quickly passing a bill to lift the nation’s borrowing limit.
The top Senate Republican objected to a move by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to advance legislation to suspend the borrowing limit using unanimous consent.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said GOP lawmakers would not help Democrats raise the nation’s borrowing limit because it would be used to pay off debt incurred by a $3.5 trillion social welfare spending package Democrats hope to pass this year.
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“Democrats will not get bipartisan help borrowing money so they can immediately blow historic sums on a partisan tax and spending spree,” McConnell said.
Republicans blocked a bill on Monday that linked a debt limit increase with emergency funding needed to keep the federal government operating beyond the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.
Republicans say Democrats must pass the debt limit increase unilaterally by attaching it to the social welfare spending package that they plan to pass with 51 votes using a budgetary tactic called reconciliation.
McConnell offered a motion that would allow Democrats to speed up that process, saying the motion would allow them to pass a debt limit increase ahead of an Oct. 18 deadline set by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
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Schumer objected, saying McConnell’s offer “keeps the same risky process in place.”
Democrats insist there is not enough time to attach a debt limit increase to their reconciliation package and that raising the debt limit should be bipartisan.
Earlier on Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters the debt limit could be added to the reconciliation package, but Senate Democrats objected and Hoyer walked back the statement, saying it “was certainly not the best option.
