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All 50 Senate Democrats voted Tuesday to raise the federal government’s borrowing limit by $2.5 trillion, a move that would allow Washington to avoid the possibility of an unprecedented default until 2023 at the earliest.
The measure passed the Senate 50-49 along party lines. Vice President Kamala Harris was not needed to break a tie vote as Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) could not take part due to an illness.
The bill now goes to the House, which was expected to take it up no later than tomorrow, the deadline set by the Treasury Department for Congress to avoid hitting the nation’s credit limit.
A simple majority was all that was needed to pass the debt limit increase after the Senate approved a one-time rule change last week allowing the measure to bypass the traditional 60-vote legislative filibuster.
The rule change agreement represented a backslide for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who warned President Biden in October — following the Senate’s previous vote on a short-term debt ceiling increase — that “I will not be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement.”
Republicans have repeatedly insisted that Democrats use the parliamentary procedure of reconciliation to increase the debt ceiling on their own as they push President Biden’s nearly $2 trillion Build Back Better Act.
Democrats and the White House have insisted that raising the debt ceiling is a bipartisan responsibility.
“This is about paying debt accumulated by both parties, so I’m pleased Republicans and Democrats came together,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said when the agreement was announced.
The deal earned McConnell a rebuke from former President Donald Trump, who referred to the Kentuckian in a Sunday statement as a “Broken Old Crow” who “didn’t have the guts to play the Debt Ceiling card, which would have given the Republicans a complete victory on virtually everything.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also voiced his misgivings, warning the rule change could be used as precedent to “launder” potentially unpopular votes while bypassing the Senate’s normal mode of operation.
Lee charged that the process was intended to make last week’s vote “appear as something other than helping Democrats raise the debt ceiling,” which he said Republican leadership “committed, in writing no less, not to do.”
With Post wires
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