8/10/21 04:39 What Does Mitch McConnell Want in the Debt Ceiling Standoff?

- The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/us/politics/mitch-mcconnell-debt-ceiling.html

As the U.S. Hurtles Toward a Debt Crisis, What Does McConnell Want?
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has a long record of tying debt ceiling increases to policy demands.
But this time, he has made none.

By Jonathan Weisman

Published Oct. 5, 2021 Updated Oct. 7, 2021

WASHINGTON — In March 2006, as the government veered dangerously close to a default, Senator Mitch
McConnell, the No. 2 Republican, let the Bush White House know he was two votes short of what he needed to raise
the legal limit on federal borrowing.

Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, began working the phones. He soon found two Democrats
willing to break ranks and vote to put the legislation over the top. But instead of thanking him, the Senate leader
grew irate. Mr. McConnell had been hoping to extract concessions from President George W. Bush as the price for
uniting Republicans around lifting the limit.

“I don’t need your damned votes,” he snapped at Mr. Card. He lifted the debt ceiling with Republicans only.

Mr. Card never learned what the Kentucky Republican wanted, but he tells the story for a reason: Mr. McConnell
has long used the periodic need to raise the government’s borrowing limit as a moment of leverage to secure a
policy win, as have leaders of both parties.

But two weeks before a potentially catastrophic default, Mr. McConnell, now the minority leader, has yet to reveal
what he wants, telling President Biden in a letter on Monday, “We have no list of demands.”

Instead, he appears to want to sow political chaos for Democrats while insulating himself and other Republicans
from an issue that has the potential to divide them.

Mr. McConnell has said the government must not be allowed to stop paying its debts; he has also said he will not let
any Republicans vote to raise the debt limit, while moving to block Democrats from doing so themselves.

He plans to do so again on Wednesday, when the Senate will vote on whether to take up legislation to raise the debt
ceiling until December of 2022. If any Republican objects, it will take 60 votes to move forward, meaning that 10
G.O.P. senators would have to join Democrats in doing so. No one expects those Republican votes to materialize.

Mr. McConnell has prescribed a single alternative for Democrats: Use a complicated budget process known as
reconciliation to maneuver around the Republican filibuster that he refuses to lift.

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8/10/21 04:39 What Does Mitch McConnell Want in the Debt Ceiling Standoff? - The New York Times

Mr. McConnell, second from right, hoped to get concessions from President George W.
Bush in 2006 before raising the borrowing limit. Alex Wong/Getty Images

“They need to do this, they have the time to do it, and the sooner they get about it, the better,” he said on Tuesday.

He even seemed to taunt Democrats. A day after Mr. Biden told Republicans they “need to stop playing Russian
roulette with the U.S. economy,” Mr. McConnell, in his signature deadpan, looked into television cameras on Capitol
Hill to “implore” Democrats “not to play Russian roulette with the American economy.”

Hardball tactics by Republicans on the debt ceiling are not new. Showdowns in 1995 and 1996 shut down the
government but also helped foster a balanced-budget agreement. A new Republican House majority in 2011 pushed
the government so close to default that Standard & Poor’s downgraded once-unassailable U.S. debt, but it also
produced the Budget Control Act, which crimped spending for years.

The 2006 showdown has been used by both parties as an object lesson. Mr. McConnell has pointed to it to show that
partisanship is nothing new; among the “no” votes on the debt ceiling increase that year were Senators Joseph R.
Biden Jr. and Barack Obama. Democrats point to what they say is the more obvious lesson: They let the vote go
through on a narrow majority, with no filibuster.

The same can be said for partisan debt ceiling increases passed in May 2003 and November 2004.

This year is different: Not only are Republicans refusing to vote for the measure, they’re creating an obstacle to stop
Democrats from pushing it through themselves.

“There’s still time for 10 Republicans to join us, no matter what some of the extremists on the hard right think,”
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, pleaded the day before the Wednesday vote to move to his
debt ceiling bill.

Senator Angus King of Maine, a moderate independent, sounded despondent. “There’s no bargaining. They’re just
stamping their feet and saying no.”

He added, “It’s a qualitatively new level of irresponsibility.”

With no overt policy demands to be met as the price for cooperation, Democrats say for Republicans, the chaos is
the point — or at least a vague hope that the latest legislative crisis will somehow undermine Democrats’ ability to
fulfill unrelated parts of Mr. Biden’s agenda, especially an expansive bill to combat climate change and reweave the
fraying social safety net.

“Democrats are preparing another staggering taxing and spending spree without any Republican input or support,”
Mr. McConnell wrote on Monday. “Bipartisanship is not a light switch that Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer may
flip on to borrow money and flip off to spend it.”

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8/10/21 04:39 What Does Mitch McConnell Want in the Debt Ceiling Standoff? - The New York Times

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said on Tuesday that he would block any
agreement simply to make the process that Mr. McConnell is demanding go more
smoothly and quickly. T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

Given that the switch is currently off, he argues, Democrats have only one path forward: The Senate Budget
Committee must produce a resolution that includes instructions to raise the debt ceiling, which must then pass the
House and Senate and weather a barrage of hostile amendments. Then the House must draft and vote on a separate
bill to lift the debt ceiling, which would then go to the Senate, where it could not be filibustered but would again have
to survive an onslaught of politically difficult votes. Any proposal could be considered, and if any were adopted, the
measure would be forced back to the House.

And they have fewer than 14 days to do it.

Democrats are left to seethe at their opponents’ tactics.

“McConnell is singularly focused on winning control of the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, full stop,” said
Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland and a longtime budget expert. “To his mind, that means using
every tactic at his disposal to cause President Biden to fail, even if that hurts the country.”

Understand the U.S. Debt Ceiling

What is the debt ceiling? The debt ceiling, also called the debt limit, is a cap on the total amount of money that the
federal government is authorized to borrow via U.S. Treasury bills and savings bonds to fulfill its financial obligations.
Because the U.S. runs budget deficits, it must borrow huge sums of money to pay its bills.

Mr. McConnell has another powerful political incentive for his stance. He cannot control his members, and is
reluctant to risk the ire of Republican base voters by leaning on senators to smooth the way for a debt-limit increase.
Even if Mr. McConnell wanted to allow one to come to a majority vote, a single senator could stop it. Senator Ted
Cruz of Texas, who has made no secret of his presidential ambitions, said on Tuesday that he would block any such
agreement — even one to expedite the process that Mr. McConnell is demanding.

Mr. McConnell appeared to acknowledge his own tricky political position on Tuesday when he said that ending the
filibuster threat “would require getting consent from every single Republican,” and added, “I can’t imagine that
would happen.”

Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, said “40 or 45” Republicans would be willing to agree to allow a debt
ceiling increase to come a vote, as long as they did not have to cast a public ballot. The problem, he said, was the
other five.

Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, seemed almost relieved that Mr. McConnell had not put Democrats in a
position where they would have to give in to conservative policy demands to stave off a Congress-imposed economic
catastrophe.

“I have learned over many years that we cannot negotiate over things like whether or not to destroy the economy,”
Mr. Schatz said, adding, “American politics has gone crazy because one party has gone crazy.”

With each passing day, the crisis becomes less avoidable. Each day Democrats decline to give in to Mr. McConnell’s
demands to use the reconciliation process makes it that much more difficult for the maneuver to be completed in
time to avoid a default. And each day the Democrats demand that Republicans blink, they reply that Democrats are
to blame for not using the process when they had time.

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8/10/21 04:39 What Does Mitch McConnell Want in the Debt Ceiling Standoff? - The New York Times

“You still have time before you get to the edge of the cliff,” Mr. Card said of the current debt-ceiling showdown. “And
that time should be used for dialogue.”

How will it end? One option that Mr. Van Hollen said Democrats might have to pursue — and that Mr. Biden on
Tuesday called “a real possibility” — is changing the filibuster rules so the borrowing limit increase, and any in the
future, could pass with 50 votes.

Mr. King, who has been unenthusiastic about changing the rules, said he had to agree.

“I have been very reluctant for nine years about modifying the filibuster rule, especially when it comes to policy, but
this has nothing to do with policy,” he said. “This is about keeping the United States and world out of what could be a
severe recession.”
Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.

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