The Senate will tie a critical hurricane relief measure to legislation that would increase the nation’s borrowing limit, after theHouse planned to take up the two bills separately.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner the Senate will add the debt limit measure after the House passes legislation to provide $8 billion in disaster relief to help Texas recover from Hurricane Harvey.
“There is no money to spend unless we lift the debt ceiling,” Cornyn said. “So that is what I expect.”
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the House would take up and pass a Senate bill combining both Harvey funding and the debt ceiling increase.
But House fiscal conservatives bristled at the Senate plan to force a debt ceiling vote on the lower chamber.
“It’s not going to be appreciated very much” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oka., a top appropriator, told the Washington Examiner. “I think there will be a lot of anger about it. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t pass. I don’t like that. I don’t like being blackmailed into voting for something.”
Republican leaders said the scope of Harvey’s destruction, coupled with a newly formed, massive hurricane aimed at Florida, would help facilitate passage of both the debt ceiling increase and Harvey funding.
Lawmakers are arguing the debt ceiling must be increased to ensure the Harvey money can be provided.
“We have a problem,” Sen. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, chairman of the House Rules Committee, said. “This is not a normal time. This has focused everybody on getting done what we have to do. You will see what transpires is the opportunity to fund the government and that is what we have to do.”
The move is opposed by fiscal conservatives who instead want to pair spending reform to the debt ceiling increase, which will push the nation’s borrowing limit well past $20 trillion.
Sen. Ted Cruz, Cornyn’s Texas colleague, told the Washington Examiner he is opposed to linking the debt ceiling and hurricance relief, but did not say he would vote against the package.
The Harvey money has become critical now that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund is about to run dry.
“The best way to have a relief package move quickly is for it to be a clean relief package and not tied to unrelated matters,” Cruz told the Washington Examiner.
The House will vote on the bill Wednesday and send it to the Senate, which is expected to take it up under special rules allowing fast consideration. The Senate will then send the measure back to the House for approval and to clear it for President Trump’s signature this week.
Cornyn said does not expect the package to be blocked by Republicans who oppose linking the two bills.
“I’m sure there are discussions going on,” with the House conservatives, Cornyn said.
