Biden blasts Republicans for ‘disgraceful’ debt ceiling blockade

President Biden condemned Senate Republicans for a “disgraceful” blockade of Democratic attempts to raise the federal government’s borrowing limit with the U.S. less than two weeks away from a potential catastrophe.

In remarks before a meeting with business leaders, Biden urged GOP senators to end a “cynical, destructive, partisan ploy” and allow Democrats to suspend the debt ceiling without Republican votes. 

“The Senate Republicans’ position, I find not only to be hypocritical, but dangerous and a bit disgraceful, especially as we’re crawling our way out of a pandemic that cost us 700,000 lives,” Biden said.

“If they don’t want to do the job, just get out of the way. We’ll take the heat. We’ll do it,” he continued. 

GOP senators have vowed to filibuster any bill that raises the federal debt limit, in a bid to force Democrats to use the budget reconciliation process, despite doing so three times under former President Trump. 

Budget reconciliation allows for the passage of legislation with only 51 votes, the same threshold for a bill that isn’t filibustered, but is far more politically and procedurally difficult. It also forces Democrats to raise the debt ceiling to a specific level, instead of suspending it until a future date.

Biden’s remarks came hours before the Senate was set to vote to end debate on a House-passed bill to waive the debt ceiling through December 2022. Republicans are almost certain to filibuster that measure and prevent Democrats from sending the bill to Biden with only their votes and the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Harris.

Democratic leaders have refused to use the budget reconciliation process to raise the debt ceiling, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) ruled out changing Senate rules to ban filibustering a debt ceiling increase, raising questions about how Congress could avoid disaster.

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