ADVERTISEMENT

Congressional Leaders Eye Tying Debt Ceiling to Defense Bill

Congressional Leaders Eye Tying Debt Ceiling to Defense Bill

Congressional leaders looking for ways around a partisan impasse on raising the debt ceiling are considering  procedural maneuvers linking it with a must-pass defense policy bill.

“I don’t know that it’s a probability, but it’s a possibility,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Monday on a conference call with reporters.

A senior Democratic aide said Monday night that leaders are considering procedural moves that would tie the National Defense Authorization Act and raising the debt ceiling among three possible courses of action to advance both and other priorities, to the House floor as early as Tuesday.

Republicans had insisted that Democrats would have to deal with the debt limit on their own, but the annual National Defense Authorization Act generally passes with bipartisan support.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican leader Mitch McConnell have been conducting private talks on how to avoid the government defaulting on its obligations. But neither has given any indication of progress or where those discussions were headed.

“Schumer has kept that very close to the vest,” said Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat. “He’s discussing it with McConnell. I don’t know what it is.” 

The Treasury Department has warned that the government could hit the debt limit and have difficulty meeting its obligations after Dec. 15, though outside analysts have said the government has a bit more time.

“I can assure you the country will never default,” McConnell said Monday night at a Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit.

Hoyer said it was “a little bit up in the air” on how the two could be linked in a way that both could clear the House and comply with intricate Senate rules on how legislation can pass with a simple majority rather than 60 votes needed for most bills.

Read More: Debt Ceiling Wiggle Room Possible With Highway Transfer Delay

One option being discussed is for the House to pass an NDAA bill agreed upon by Democrats and Republicans in both chambers, according to the aide, then separately pass a second bill with a one-time debt-ceiling increase with fast-track procedures in the Senate, which would also lift the so-called Paygo law to avoid automatic cuts in Medicare at the start of next year.

A second would be putting both of these bills together as one, passing it in the House and sending it to the Senate.

The third option, said the aide, is to have the two bills “tethered” by the same rule that sets ground rules for floor action on the measures, so that the two are voted on separately in the House, but then rejoined and sent to the Senate as one bill.

Once a the fast-track procedure is passed by the Senate, the Senate would start the next step to raise the debt ceiling, said the aide.

The aim would be to accommodate splits within both parties to win majorities for each, so that moderate Republicans could vote yes on the defense bill and no on the debt limit while progressive Democrats could vote no on the NDAA and yes on the debt limit language.

Some lawmakers remained skeptical.

““Given the option between doing something the hard way and the easy way, we always seem to opt for the hard way,” said Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican. “I think it’s clear that Democrats are going to have to do it by themselves.

He said that even if the defense bill is only linked to the debt ceiling by a procedural move, Republicans will get slammed by their base.

“So if I vote for the NDAA, people are going to say I voted to raise the debt ceiling,” Cornyn said. “I’m not for it.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.