GOP senators block bill to suspend the debt limit and avoid government shutdown
Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith discusses the uncertainty in Washington as the September 30 deadline for a government shutdown looms.
Video transcript
- There is a lot of uncertainty in Washington about how to move this going forward, what exactly Democrats are going to do here. But we have heard from Democratic leaders today, and here are a few of the options that they're talking about. First, Senate Majority Leader Schumer says that he's going to ask for unanimous consent from the Senate today to raise the debt ceiling with a 50-vote majority instead of that 60-vote threshold that you typically see in regular order.
But Republicans say they're going to object to that. Schumer says if Republicans want Democrats to do this on their own, then they should allow them to do it with 50 votes. But Republicans say no, Democrats should do this through reconciliation. So it doesn't look like that method is going to work.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said today that it is possible that the House sends a clean debt limit extension over to the Senate, that they vote on it at some point, maybe as early as today, maybe over the next few days, send it to the Senate. But again, Republicans say they are not going to vote for that, so that's likely to fail as well.
Hoyer did say that reconciliation is on the table. It seems like that could be how they have to do this. If they want to get this done, they might have to do it through reconciliation. But the number two Democrat in the Senate at roughly the same time said that's a nonstarter. So it's really not clear how Democrats plan to proceed here, and they are running out of time. Because as you mentioned, Treasury Secretary Yellen saying October 18 is the new drop-dead date.
And even aside from the debt limit conversation, we also have a government shutdown just a few days away. Republicans did block that bill as well because of the debt limit provision in it. So now they're trying to figure out their next steps on that. Leaders say they're not going to let the government shut down, that they will figure out a short-term funding bill of some sort before the shutdown at the end of September 30, so on Friday morning. But again, it's just not clear how they plan to go forward at this point. So we'll be watching for some sort of clarity later today.
