Senate won’t touch House GOP debt limit plan until McCarthy and Biden make a deal, McConnell says
Samantha-Jo Roth
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made it clear Senate Republicans would not get involved in the debt ceiling debate until an agreement is reached between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
McConnell’s comments at a press conference on Wednesday came before the House passed the GOP debt limit plan. House leadership made a flurry of last-minute changes on Tuesday night in an effort to win over key Republican holdouts. McConnell praised McCarthy for “uniting” Republicans behind his debt-limit proposal but did not go as far as to endorse the plan.
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“Regardless of whether the House passes this measure or doesn’t, I want to disabuse any of you of the notion that there is any measure clearing the Senate with 60 votes that could be approved by this House, is essentially zero,” McConnell said to reporters Wednesday afternoon. “This agreement must be reached because we must never default. The agreement needs to be reached between the Speaker and the President.”
Senate Republicans continue to maintain that a plan to raise the debt ceiling will need to originate in the House, and they plan to take a back seat until a deal is negotiated between McCarthy and Biden. While McConnell cut a deal with Senate Democrats that allowed them to raise the debt limit in 2021 and negotiated another to end the standoff in 2011, he has made it clear he will not be playing the same role again.
“The president knows how to do this, he and I did it in 2011, and he knows sometimes in divided government you don’t get things exactly the way you want them,” McConnell said. “I would remind the president just as he did in 2011, that this is one of those occasions, and until he and the speaker reach an agreement, we will be at a standoff.”
McConnell has taken great care to show a unified front with McCarthy recently after a number of divisions late last year raised concerns about how the House speaker and the Senate GOP leader would work together.
Members of Senate leadership slammed the White House’s stance on McCarthy’s revised plan. Recent changes include proposed work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries to be implemented on a quicker timetable. They also agreed to remove the repeal of tax breaks for ethanol, a move to gain the support of Iowa Republicans.
“It is irresponsible for President Biden to give Speaker McCarthy the cold shoulder; it’s been 83 days since they’ve spoken,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), head of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm. “Speaker McCarthy has come to the table with commonsense ideas to claw back wasteful spending by addressing the debt crisis. This should be and must be a bipartisan discussion.”
While many Senate Republicans are praising McCarthy’s efforts, some are not thrilled with this current proposal, pointing to a portion that would extend the debt ceiling for only one year, which could set up another standoff months before a major election, a move that could be politically risky.
“Do I wish we could fix this thing once and for all? The answer to that is yes. Is this going to do it? Clearly not. Not at this stage of the negotiations,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) to reporters earlier in the week.
Senate Democrats said the bill is dead on arrival, and the White House said Biden would veto it.
“The GOP’s Default on America Act does not bring us any closer to avoiding the first-ever default,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday. “In fact, it only brings us dangerously close to default.”
Several House Democrats have called on Biden to sit down with McCarthy and negotiate, and that could come soon depending on whether the House is able to pass a proposal this week. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a centrist Democrat in a ruby-red state who faces a tough reelection, has also urged Biden to be more willing to come to the table.
“We should be able to sit down and talk like grown-ups,” Manchin said to reporters. “Everybody should be involved.”
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When asked about this by reporters Wednesday, Schumer maintained the party is on the same page about passing a clean debt ceiling deal without any conditions attached.
“Our caucus is unified, the president is unified, and his group is unified. Hakeem Jeffries and the Democratic House members are unified. Clean debt ceiling, clean debt ceiling, that’s how it’s always been done,” Schumer said. “It was done three times, twice under Trump and once under Biden. To tie the two together is reckless and will lead to default.”