During remarks from the Senate floor on Monday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pushed back against the notion that Republicans are to blame for the current state of gridlock in Washington, D.C.
McConnell said, in part, “Democrats could not be more capable of handling this on their own. Just months ago, the Democratic Leader won new powers to reuse reconciliation over and over. They don’t even need our consent to set a vote at 51 instead of 60. They need even less help raising the debt limit than majorities needed in the past.”
“So, trust me, Madame President, if Republicans were sitting on a hidden veto power to stop reconciliation bills, you would have heard about it way back in the springtime.”
“The majority doesn’t need our votes. They just want a… bipartisan shortcut around procedural hurdles they can actually clear on their own. And they want that shortcut so they can pivot right back to partisan spending as fast as possible,” he added.
“They want a bipartisan shortcut to get right back to more partisan hardball,” McConnell noted. “And Republicans have spent two and a half months — this is no surprise — two and a half months ago, explaining that this is the way they needed to go forward on the debt ceiling. This unified Democratic government is having trouble governing.”
He said, “They couldn’t even pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill which the president negotiated and the Speaker of the House promised would pass last week.
“The majority needs to stop sleepwalking toward yet another preventable crisis. Democrats need to tackle the debt limit. We gave them a roadmap and three months’ notice. I suggest that our colleagues get moving.”
.@LeaderMcConnell: "The majority needs to stop sleepwalking toward yet another preventable crisis. Democrats need to tackle the debt limit. We gave them a roadmap and three months' notice. I suggest that our colleagues get moving." pic.twitter.com/YRvgGrNLpo
— The Hill (@thehill) October 4, 2021
As reported by The Daily Wire, McConnell also “refuted Democrats’ claims in a letter on Monday to President Joe Biden that Republicans were responsible for the ongoing debt ceiling problem, noting that Senate Republicans have warned their Democratic counterparts for months that they will need to raise the debt ceiling on their own.”
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have been strategizing on how to come together as a party in order to pass elements of President Biden’s agenda.
As reported by The Daily Wire, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote a letter to Democrats on Monday in which he laid out a schedule for passing the current bills being debated in Congress and raising the debt ceiling.
“Let me be clear about the task ahead of us: we must get a bill to the President’s desk dealing with the debt limit by the end of the week. Period,” Schumer wrote in the letter.
“We do not have the luxury of waiting until October 18th, as it is our responsibility to re-assure the world that the United States meets our obligations in a timely fashion and that the full faith and credit of the United States should never be in question. The consequences of even approaching the X date could be disastrous for our economy and devastating to American families,” Schumer added.
Schumer also reportedly pushed to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the massive social policy legislation by the end of October.
“We can get this done, together, if we put aside our differences and find the common ground within our party. It will require sacrifice,” Schumer wrote.
“Not every member will get everything he or she wanted. But at the end of the day, we will pass legislation that will dramatically improve the lives of the American people. I believe we are going to do just that in the month of October,” he added.
The leader also said he wanted to get to a final deal “within a matter of days, not weeks.”