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A number of Republicans, nonetheless, have stated they don’t really feel the identical urgency to take up the debt restrict, amid a December pileup of unfinished legislative work. Within the evenly divided Senate, at the very least 10 Republicans would want to affix Democrats to make sure such a measure might advance absent a transfer to make use of the reconciliation course of.
“I don’t suppose the debt restrict challenge is till someday subsequent 12 months,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority chief, stated at a information convention final month.
Requested in regards to the debt restrict, Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, stated, “I feel it’s extra vital to get the federal government funded, and I feel which may turn into an impediment to doing that.”
Settlement on a authorities funding bundle has remained elusive, jeopardizing lingering hopes of attaching not solely a debt restrict measure however an inventory of legislative priorities. With the funding bundle left because the lone must-pass measure, lawmakers are eyeing including a collection of priorities, together with a invoice to overtake how Congress counts electoral votes, psychological well being and medical packages, and tax proposals.
After weeks of negotiations, Republicans and Democrats stay at odds over how you can break up funding between army and social packages. Talks are set to proceed via the weekend forward of the Dec. 16 deadline, although aides stated lawmakers might go a one-week stopgap invoice to present negotiations extra time.
However with senior lawmakers cautious about upending any fragile funding settlement, a debt restrict measure can be unlikely to make the lower.
Whereas a number of officers in personal acknowledged their chagrin that Congress may delay motion on the problem, Democrats reiterated that they had been ready to oppose any Republican proposals to chop home spending, notably for Social Safety and Medicare.
“It’s an unimaginable factor that they’re even considering happening this street,” stated Consultant Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who is about to turn into the minority chief in January. “But when that’s a battle they wish to have, with respect to holding the American economic system hostage to the debt ceiling, that could be a battle that we’re ready to lean into aggressively — and we’ll win.”
Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting.
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