Instead of Minting $1 Trillion Coin, Senate Punted on the Debt Ceiling
Democratic leadership came to terms with Mitch McConnell on a short-term debt ceiling increase that did not solve the issue, but rather delayed it until late November or early December.
As the concerns regarding the debt ceiling were swelling to distressing proportions with both partisan squabbles on how to go about it and the president’s vow to protect his perceived “norms,” the drama subsided quickly on Wednesday— for now, at least. The issue surrounding the debt ceiling and a potential U.S. default was not ultimately been solved, it was rather kicked down the road so as to be handled at some later period.
Chuck Schumer’s cloture (on a standalone bill that was bound to fail) was set aside for Democrats to consider the offering Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made in a statement he put out on the debt ceiling.
McConnell and the GOP had already said, for months, that anything to suspend or raise the debt ceiling should be done through reconciliation, a process Biden, Schumer, and other Democrats have called lengthy and complex. On Wednesday, to facilitate that, McConnell signaled he was open to a short-term, fixed dollar debt ceiling bill in order to make time for an inclusion in reconciliation.
“We have already made it clear we would assist in expediting the 304 reconciliation process for stand-alone debt limit legislation,” McConnell wrote. “To protect the American people from a near-term Democrat-created crisis, we will also allow Democrats to use normal procedures to pass an emergency debt limit extension at a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels into December. This will moot Democrats’ excuses about the time crunch they created and give the unified Democratic government more than enough time to pass standalone debt limit legislation through reconciliation.”
The offer left Democratic leadership with a silly dilemma. . .
Indeed, either way, it is “the same war,” but nevertheless, the battle looks to be delayed until late November or early December when the short-term bill would expire.
This decision from Democratic leadership came even as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was signaling that Biden was against a momentary solution.
Senate Democrats were relieved and happy to take the offer, the specifics of which are still being negotiated, but there is no intention on their part to do something longer term in the reconciliation process as Republicans want. Bernie Sanders declared that the extra time afforded will not persuade them to adhere to McConnell and the GOP’s wishes.
Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) said the same. “I think it's great that [McConnell has] folded and we're gonna move our agenda and we're gonna take care of the debt ceiling and then we're going to go on and pass infrastructure,” Duckworth said to reporters. “We’re not gonna do reconciliation.”
Though a debt ceiling crisis and U.S. default won’t happen on October 18, the issue has merely been delayed. This even as the simple solution has existed all along and has even been advocated for by Congress members Jerry Nadler and Rashida Tlaib.
That solution, of course, is minting a $1 trillion coin for the Treasury Department to deposit as a method of retiring the debt already incurred and avoiding a U.S. default.
Instead of going through with this straightforward accounting trick of a solution, the issue has been swept under the rug until the winter when everyone can participate in this discord and madness all over again. Add to it the continued disagreements about a debt ceiling raise being included in reconciliation and it’s clear that the scene in Washington will be equally as depraved and careless then as ever.
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