McConnell warns Biden that Republicans will not help raise the debt ceiling again in December due to Schumer's 'tantrum' speech and 'grave concerns that another reckless spending bill will hurt America'
One day after the Senate approved a temporary lift to the U.S. debt ceiling, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden that he would not aid Democrats again in raising the debt limit.
Following weeks of partisan fighting, the Senate approved the short-term fix that will allow the United States to avoid defaulting on its bills in a 50-48 vote on Thursday evening. The House will vote on the measure on Tuesday.
Congress will need to find a longer-term solution in December. But McConnell has said the reprieve would give Democrats enough time to raise the debt ceiling through a procedural move known as reconciliation, which Democrats have rejected as an option for lifting the cap.
In his letter to Biden, McConnell referenced comments on the Senate floor on Thursday by Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who said Republicans had played a 'dangerous and risky partisan game.'
McConnell's letter included a string of insults aimed at Schumer, a remarkable broadside by one Senate leader against another
Senator Joe Manchin (background) buried his head in his hands as Senator Chuck Schumer blasted Republicans for not assisting more with debt ceiling
'I am writing to make it clear that in light of Senator Schumer's hysterics and my grave concerns about the ways that another vast, reckless, partisan spending bill would hurt Americans and help China, I will not be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement,' McConnell wrote.
McConnell's letter included a string of insults aimed at Schumer, a remarkable broadside by one Senate leader against another.
'Last night, in a bizarre spectacle, Senator Schumer exploded in a rant that was so partisan, angry, and corrosive that even Democratic Senators were visibly embarrassed by him and for him,' McConnell wrote. 'This tantrum encapsulated and escalated a pattern of angry incompetence from Senator Schumer.'
McConnell added: 'This childish behavior only further alienated the Republican members who helped facilitate this short-term patch. It has poisoned the well even further.'
'I write to inform you that I will not provide such assistance again if your all-Democrat government drifts into another avoidable crisis,' McConnell noted.
'Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had three months' notice to handle one of his most basic governing duties,' McConnell wrote. 'Amazingly, even this proved to be asking too much.'
'This tantrum encapsulated and escalated a pattern of angry incompetence from Senator Schumer. Your lieutenants on Capitol Hill now have the time they claimed they lacked to address the debt ceiling through standalone reconciliation, and all the tools to do it,' he wrote. 'They cannot invent another crisis and ask for my help.'
Since summer, McConnell repeatedly said Republicans would not assist Democrats in pushing a debt ceiling extension through the Senate by helping them reach the 60 votes needed for most legislation. He cited Democrats' proposed 10-year, $3.5 trillion social, economic and tax measure, which Republicans unanimously oppose.
Hours before Thursday´s vote, McConnell reversed course and proposed a short-term extension into December. Without a renewal of federal borrowing powers, the Treasury Department had projected it would run out of cash to pay the government's bills by October 18.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks with reporters as he walks to his office on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
If the government depletes its legal ability to borrow money, financial analysts have warned that it could deliver a serious blow to the U.S. and global economy and cause delays in government payments to Social Security recipients and others.
McConnell has insisted that Democrats can raise the debt ceiling by themselves by employing the same special budget process they´re already using for their enormous domestic spending and tax measure. Those procedures forbid filibusters from being used against certain bills.
Democrats say they won´t use that process, which they call too cumbersome. But it would also require them to raise the debt limit by a specific dollar amount that, they fear, Republicans will make a staple of campaign ads attacking them.
Democrats accused McConnell of creating a potential financial crisis. They noted that the current federal debt of around $28 trillion is to cover spending that's already been approved, including around $7 trillion under former President Donald Trump.
McConnell said it was Democrats who prompted the problem because he had warned them since summer that they would have to approve the debt limit extension on their own. Before Thursday, the House had approved debt ceiling extensions but Republicans blocked them in the Senate.
After Schumer's speech was over on Thursday night, having attacked Republicans for not assisting more in raising the debt ceiling, Senator Joe Manchin confronted him on the Senate floor.
Manchin sat behind Schumer as the Senate Majority Leader spoke, burying his face in his hands.
He is said to have told Schumer the speech was 'f***ing stupid.'
The Democrat from West Virginia stood up midway through Schumer's remarks and moved to another part of the chamber.
Joe Manchin speaks to Chuck Schumer after his speech blasting Republicans, the two men can be seen in the upper right-hand corner with Manchin standing and Schumer seated at his desk
Senators John Thune and Mitt Romney also confronted Schumer, with Romney telling Schumer to be more 'graceful'
Later, he came back to speak to his fellow Democratic senator. Republican Senators John Thune and Mitt Romney also confronted Schumer on his remarks, with Romney advising Schumer to be more 'graceful.'
After the spectacle on the Senate floor, which all took place on C-SPAN's cameras, Manchin told reporters on Capitol Hill that he didn't think Schumer's speech was 'appropriate.'
'[Schumer] felt charged up and he and I had good conversation,' Manchin said. 'We have to deweaponize, you can't be playing politics.'
He went on to add: 'I'm sure Chuck's frustrated but that was not a way to take it out. We just disagree. I'd done it differently.'
But Manchin added Republicans were just as guilty at playing politics. 'It's just civility is gone. I'm not going to be part of getting rid of it. I'm going to try to bring it back and I speak out when I see someone.'
Matters came to a head after the Senate voted to increase the debt ceiling until December, narrowly avoiding a financial crisis, approving it 50-48.
The House will vote on the bill on Tuesday. The White House said President Joe Biden will sign it.
Schumer celebrated the deal as a 'temporary but necessary fix' and used his remarks to criticize Republicans for not wanting to pass a longterm debt increase through regular order but use a long and complicated legislative process known as reconciliation.
'Today's vote is proof positive that the debt limit can be addressed without going through the reconciliation process, just as Democrats have been saying for months,' Schumer said.
Schumer hammered Republicans in his speech after the vote, which lawmakers from both political parties questioned afterward. Schumer will need Republican assistance again in December if he wants to pass a longterm extension of the debt limit through the regular legislative process.
'Republicans played a risky and partisan game, and I am glad their brinkmanship didn't work,' Schumer said.
Romney said Schumer should have been more 'graceful' in his remarks.
'There's a time to be graceful and there's a time to be combative, and that was the time for for grace,' he explained to reporters after.
'He made the objective he described more difficult to achieve by virtue of what he said,' he noted.
Thune was also angry.
'It was an incredibly partisan speech after we helped him solve the problem,' Thune said of Schumer's remarks.
And he told Schumer his speech was 'inappropriate and tone deaf.'
Republicans had their own intra-party drama when leadership tried to prevent the need for a 60-vote majority to move the bill forward in the legislatve process.
They wanted their GOP lawmakers to stay silent so the bill could move forward 'without objection' (in Senate parlance) with a simple 51-vote majority, which would have required all Democrats and a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris.
Then no Republicans would have to sign on.
But a number of Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz, were against that, and it forced McConnell to find 10 GOP senators to vote for moving the bill forward, after he spent months vowing his party wouldn't help Democrats raise the nation's borrowing limt.
Eleven GOP senators ultimately voted to it forward: McConnell; John Cornyn; Lisa Murkowski; Thune; Susan Collins; John Barrasso; Rob Portman; Roy Blunt; Richard Shelby; Shelley Capito and Mike Rounds.
Three of those senators - Barrasso, Portman and Blunt - are retiring.
The deal will hike the debt limit by $480 billion, which is what the Treasury Department says it needs to get the nation to December 3. The current debt limit is $28.4 trillion.
The deal will keep the United States in business for the next two months and from defaulting on its debt, which has never happened in modern American history.
If action wasn't taken, America would stop paying its bills on October 18, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned, an action that would ruin the country's credit rating, hit Americans in their pocket books and rattle stock markets around the world.
Senator John Thune criticized Chuck Schumer's speech in remarks to reporters after the vote, calling it an 'incredibly partisan speech after we helped him solve the problem'
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had to find 10 Republicans to support moving the debt deal through the legislative process after a rebellion in his own party
Joe Manchin told Schumer his speech was 'f***ing stupid'
Mitt Romney also went up to Schumer on the Senate floor to confront him on his remarks
Not all Republicans were happy about the way the legislative process played out.
Cruz wanted a recorded vote, which required McConnell to come up with 10 Republican 'yes' votes.
The Republican senator from Texas blasted his GOP Leader's strategy, calling it a 'strategic mistake.'
'We were on the verge of victory, but we turned that victory into defeat,' Cruz said in a speech on the Senate floor, calling the deal a 'strategic mistake by our leadership.'
'Chuck Schumer won this game of chicken,' he added.
Former President Donald Trump, moments ahead of the vote, urged Republicans to vote against it.
'Republican Senators, do not vote for this terrible deal being pushed by folding Mitch McConnell. Stand strong for our Country. The American people are with you!'
The debt ceiling was repeatedly suspended under Trump with the help of Republican senators.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham already said he was worried letting Democrats through with a simple majority vote 'would be capitulation.'
'If Democrats want an expedited process to use reconciliation to raise the debt limit they can have it,' he said. 'However, if Republicans intend to give Democrats a pass on using reconciliation to raise the debt limit – now or in the future – that would be capitulation.'
Pressure was on for the Senate to act. The House had passed legislation that would suspend the debt ceiling until December 2022, after the midterm election, a proposal that Republicans roundly rejected.
President Biden added his weight to the talks, convening a meeting of his Cabinet officials and top business leaders at the White House on Wednesday to urge action.
Biden warned that default could trigger a national security crisis and held the risk of tanking the stock market and wiping out retirement savings.
'It's about paying for what we owe, and preventing catastrophic events,' Biden said, comparing impact to a 'meteor heading our way.'
He spoke soon after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued his own warning.
'If the United States defaults, it would undermine the economic strength on which our national security rests,' he said.
'It would also seriously harm our service members and their families because, as Secretary, I would have no authority or ability to ensure that our service members, civilians, or contractors would be paid in full or on time.'
Once the vote on the debt ceiling is dispatched, the Senate can pivot to Biden's $3.5 trillion budget package of social programs.
In making the offer on the debt ceiling, McConnell backed down from the Republicans' hardline position and offered a short-term extension of the debt limit through December.
But he made a caveat - Democrats must put a price tag on raising the debt limit and not extend it to a certain date.
And he did not lift the Repubican blockade of a longer-term increase. McConnell repeated his demands that Democrats use the complicated and time-consuming procedure known as reconciliation for a long term extension.
Republicans want Democrats to raise the debt ceiling by a specific number and filibustered a House-passed bill that would suspend the debt limit through December 2022 - after the midterm election.
The GOP, in turn, are then likely to use that number against Democrats in the midterm elections as they try to take control of Congress.
Progressive independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said Democrats accepted the deal because 'Mitch McConnell finally saw the light' in proposing a solution that could pass.
'There would have been a global economic collapse if in fact the wealthiest nation on earth did not pay its debts,' Sanders said. 'We're going to pay our debts. We have two months to figure it out.'
The light in the cupola of the Capitol Dome is illuminated
While the deal does buy time, it also gives a December deadline, which would be around the same time Congress is facing a deadline to fund the government and stave off a shutdown.
It also puts a band aid on the debt issue as Democrats try to pass Biden's ambitious social agenda, which Republicans oppose and some moderate Democrats decry as too expensive.
However, Democrats said they will not bend on McConnell's demands that the majority party use reconciliation to extend the borrowing limit by a year or more.
'I think it's great that (McConnell's) 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,' said Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.
'We're not gonna do reconciliation,' she said, which other Democratic senators echoed.
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