House and Senate Democrats are aiming to introduce a bill Friday that would rework the debt ceiling process after Congress reached a deal shortly before the debt default date predicted by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, giving the Treasury Department power to continue paying the nation’s debt, according to The Wall Street Journal.
President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan debt ceiling bill on June 3 just days before the nation could have defaulted on its debt, and weeks after negotiating with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the parameters of the legislation. The Debt Ceiling Reform Act, sponsored by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, would effectively give the Treasury Department control over following through on the nation’s financial obligations, according to the WSJ.
“After a near catastrophic default thanks to political games by our Republican colleagues, it’s time to put the debt ceiling in the hands of the Treasury Secretary,” Durbin, the number two Senate Democrat, told the WSJ. “We need legislation to reform the way we address the debt ceiling.”
The Durbin-Boyle led bill would give Congress 30 days to stop the Treasury from issuing payments via a veto-proof joint disapproval resolution, requiring two-thirds of the vote in both chambers, according to the WSJ. The legislature will still have some oversight on the debt, allowing for members to vote against raising the ceiling as opposed to voting to hike it.
Democrats have criticized Republicans for using the nation’s borrowing limit as leverage to gain concessions on spending cuts, and many in the GOP have criticized Biden and other Democrats for stalling debt limit negotiations.
“I am hoping that there will be Republican members who are interested in this specific reform,” Boyle, the prominent Democrat on the House Budget Committee, told the WSJ.
Boyle said they drew some of the legislation’s parameters from a proposal by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell aimed at addressing the debt limit crisis in 2011.
The Fiscal Responsibilities Act lifted the country’s borrowing limit into 2025, capping non-defense discretionary spending at Fiscal Year 2022 levels, while not raising the debt ceiling by a specific dollar amount. The 99-page bill also includes permitting reform, work requirements for welfare programs and resumes student loan payments.
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