President Joe Biden suggested he is open to backing a short-term debt ceiling increase proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“We’ve got to see if the deal is done. I’m not sure of that yet,” Biden told reporters in Chicago on Thursday, crossing his fingers.
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Moments before, during a press gaggle on Air Force One, the White House called McConnell’s proposal to extend the short-term debt ceiling extension a “positive step forward.” That marked a departure from its position on Wednesday, when the White House derided McConnell’s proposal as a move to “kick the can down the road.”
“This is a positive step forward,” deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “It gives us some breathing room from the catastrophic default we were approaching because of Sen. McConnell’s decision to play politics with our economy.”
The government is less than two weeks away from an Oct. 18 deadline that the Treasury Department warns of a possible federal default.
McConnell said he would support advancing a process “for stand-alone debt limit legislation,” or for permitting Democrats “to use normal procedures” to pass a fixed extension lasting into December.
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Democrats hoped to pass legislation to extend the debt ceiling until December 2022 but have been unable to secure the 10 Republican votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
