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.”
As reported by The Hill, “Schumer, in his letter, warned that if they aren’t able to break the stalemate over the nation’s borrowing limit, then the Senate ‘will likely be forced to remain in session over this weekend’ and ‘possibly’ through a one-week recess scheduled to start on Oct. 11.”
Last week, Democrats were unable to come to an agreement on the pieces of legislation. Progressives in the House have held fast to their social spending price tag, but moderates in the Senate like Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) have said they won’t vote for an expensive bill. Moderate House Democrats wanted to see the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed, but progressives were successful in holding it up as negotiations over the larger bill continued.
President Joe Biden went to Capitol Hill on Friday in order to meet with the House Democratic caucus, but after the meeting, he implied that the timeline of passing the bills wasn’t important.
“We’re gonna get this done,” Biden said as he left the meeting.
“It doesn’t matter when. It doesn’t matter whether it’s six minutes, six days, or six weeks. We’re gonna get it done,” he added.
As The Daily Wire previously reported on Friday, “Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have reportedly been desperately counting votes on the infrastructure bill since yesterday when Pelosi was forced to call off a planned vote on the measure, scheduled to take place around 6:30 pm. White House negotiators were still hard at work in Pelosi’s office Thursday evening, according to sources on the ground that spoke to The Daily Wire.”
“With progressives demanding Sinema and Manchin agree to pass the $3.5 trillion package before they’ll sign on to the $1.2 trillion one, Pelosi appears to have called in the president himself to help handle her caucus breakdown,” it added.