Mitch McConnell says that Republicans aren't opposed to raising the debt limit. It's just that they don't plan to help. Democrats control the government, so if they want to raise it they should do it by themselves.
The problem, of course, is that Republicans aren't just standing around waiting for Democrats to do something. They are actively filibustering any attempt to raise the debt ceiling. Or are they?
GOP Sen @RoyBlunt tells us he and probably 44 GOP colleagues would be willing to give consent to waive debt limit filibuster but other 5-6 senator would not give UC
— Erik Wasson (@elwasson) October 4, 2021
Hot dog! Blunt says there are 44 Republicans willing to raise the debt ceiling in addition to the 50 Democrats who are already on board. That's 94 total, which is way more than enough to break a filibuster by the other six.¹ It would only take a day or two.
And yet, nobody seems willing to believe Blunt. I wonder why?
¹In his tweet, Blunt says 5-6 senators would withhold UC, or unanimous consent. Without diving into the weeds, this is essentially the same thing as a filibuster. It can be overridden by 60 senators with a couple of days of debate.
Is there any other governmental system so designed to act against itself?
A check and a balance are one thing, but if there so many checks as to prevent any action, there is hardly a balance, only a heap.
Hear, hear! Moreover, the most critical changes need to be made in the Senate, where the blockages are MERE RULES that can be changed by majority vote, or by simply ignoring them (and overruling or firing the parliamentarian, if necessary.)
I don't buy the argument that if the Dems eliminate the filibuster, or the one-man-holds-up all executive appointments rule, or the "we all have to agree, 100% of us, in order to permit to majority rule on this one vote" thing (how does THAT make any sense?!), then the Republicans will "abuse" these new privileges when they're in power.
But that's democracy, folks. Majority rule. "Elections have consequences," as one eminently quotable individual once said.
And if you really want democratic representation, get rid of the Senate altogether, or make its membership proportional to population like the House. And elect the President by direct popular vote. Don't screw around with bizarro kludges like "National Popular Vote."
Honestly, even the revered "founding fathers" didn't much care for the idea of a Senate representing the states and not their population.
Democrats have assumed for decades that what they regard as binding precedents are treated as the niceties you teach a toddler by Republicans, where, all grown up, no one can stop them putting real ammo in their real guns.
Biden told the house to get rid of Medicare expansion and 2 of the climate initiatives. Wasn't happy they were included in the bill.
So, I take all fifty Democratic senators aren't on board to support a filibuster carve-out for a debt ceiling suspension. Do I have that right? Because if they were, this exercise in inanity could be ended.
I almost have a smidgeon of respect for the GOP on this episode. Democrats in general are better on the vast majority of issues. But on this one Republicans have a point. Democrats can easily take care of this idiocy. On a strictly partisan basis, they have the votes. Nothing in the Constitution says that, when the other party engages in civic vandalism, you have to follow suit.
It’s looking increasingly likely that the legacy of the Biden presidency and of the Democratic Party will be the preservation of the Jim Crow filibuster.
In America 2040, I believe you mean Diego Cuervo.
Fitting that the GQP will turn the United States of America into a strongman state just as we turn into Latin America North.
Can Josh Hawley grow a bombass mustache like Porfirio Diaz, though?
They can't carve it out.
Well, here's your best argument for tossing the filibuster, if I understand it. Even with 95 or so Senators in favor of something, a handful can use the filibuster to stop it forever? (60 Senators have to come together to stop that handful from stopping things for more than "a couple of days"?) Get rid of it now.
Yeah, I'll believe that after the debt limit is raised....and raised by an amount that we should not see it again for years, not months...
Part of getting rid of the filibuster is worthless, is due to Manchin's essential FA status as the last Democratic Senator from a fossil fuel state. He won't vote for the "Social agenda" and limits Climate legislation because he can't run on 2024 on that. It's why DNC leadership is not gun hoe to fire that shot, when it essentially is a miss. House leadership needs purged. They need people who can craft bills that represents the party's true electoral power. The fiscal side, it is 19 Senators.
I suspect the move from the 2008 DNC position on climate, which was firm but rational until starting in 2014, Dems starting taking hits. Ancient Democratic families in Iowa bailing the party. Completely collapsing in fossil fuel states where before hand they could squeeze a Senator out. Damaging the party in almost all rural areas. I am pretty sure that is it. But keep on muttering racism slobs.
This board is a disease of political self righteousness and misunderstanding how the electoral system to trying to change the system to force your views. How Trumpian progtards.
I hope that the internet is still working when the oceans have risen and vast swaths of America are scorched beyond livability, so that I can revisit this comment and ponder how foolish it was for the Democrats to worry about the future instead of about how to eke out temporary wins in fossil fuel loving states.
You got nothing else boy. You play the hand your dealt.
There is only one reconciliation budget bill that can be passed for FY2022.
If you want the debt ceiling to be included, the deadline for a technical default is October 18. That means that you need to resolve the $3.5T/$2T/$1.5T infrastructure talks before then, otherwise there will be no infrastructure bill.
I think Democrats thought that, had they been able to use up the reconciliation on infrastructure weeks ahead of the debt ceiling deadline, they would have foreclosed the option to use reconciliation on the debt ceiling.
Manchin/Sinema hijacked this timeline, forcing Democrats to keep the option open. I think it was deliberate. For weeks, Sinema/Manchin could not identify their priorities until after the Democrats' self-imposed deadline to get infrastructure signed off had passed.
I don't think we have honest players here, folks. I think their delay tactics were meant to put their fellow Democrats into a bind. I don't think they want an infrastructure bill passed at all. Manchin dangled a red herring when he brought up the Hyde Amendment after the self-imposed deadline had passed. Why pull that out of his ass? It sure looks like he plans to use that to falsely defend a vote against infrastructure.
It's time to face up that Manchin's deep in the pockets of coal and Sinema is just arbitrarily bonkers.
Sinema is bonkers but her goal isn’t re-election. It’s to be an attention whore until she can secure a post-senate position as a different kind of whore, aka a well-paid lobbyist.
Your point is a waste. Sounds like they can just nuke the filibuster for the debt ceiling. So that is gone. Good riddance.