- Budget reconciliation, bipartisan infrastructure,
a debt ceiling brinkmanship, all at once.
- The reality is, if nothing happens on those items,
nothing happens to the rest of the country.
- But a government shutdown is sort of looming, here.
- The debt ceiling: not raising that is playing with fire.
- It's September 27th and Congress has four days
before the US government will shut down,
and only a couple of weeks before the country
runs out of money and defaults on its loans.
- The debt ceiling is simply a restriction
that Congress puts on the Treasury Department
for how much money the federal government
can borrow to pay its bills.
The government spends more money than it takes in and so,
it constantly needs to go back to Congress
and ask for them to raise the debt ceiling,
so that they can keep paying their bills.
- We passed legislation to keep government open
and lift the debt ceiling.
- The big deadline that's happening here is the debt limit
and it's really become a standoff
between Senate Republicans and Democrats.
- Republicans are trying a dine and dash of historic proportion.
- The debt ceiling will be raised,
as it always should be,
but it will be raised by the Democrats.
- We don't know exactly when the government is going
to run out of money to keep paying their bills,
but Yellen has warned lawmakers that it's coming up very soon.
- It is imperative that Congress address the debt limit.
If not, our current estimate is the Treasury will likely exhaust
its extraordinary measures by October 18th.
- Economists warn it could plunge the US into a recession,
could cost millions of jobs, billions of dollars,
the US could default and be seen by the world
as an untrustworthy financial partner.
Democrats have tied the spending bill
and a bill to raise the debt ceiling together
and Democrats are going to put it up for a vote
in the Senate on September 27th.
It will almost certainly fail.
- The motion is not agreed to.
- I think we're going to get it done,
but I have meetings tonight, tomorrow,
and for the next little bit.
- Democrats are desperate for a solution,
while Republicans say they won't vote to raise the limit
on the amount of money the government can borrow
to repay those obligations.
- Technically, you need 60 votes to make sure
that the debt limit is raised in the Senate,
so you would require the buy-in of 10 Republicans.
But Democrats argue that the reason why a debt limit
has to be raised, anyway,
is because of past spending, all the past spending,
essentially, that's been put on the government credit card,
and a lot of that has been allotted
to Trump's administration.
- Can you guarantee that the US will not reach the debt ceiling,
that that will not happen? - No, I can't.
That's up to Mitch McConnell.
- They have to move quickly and decide what to do next.
Do they try to pressure Republicans to vote
for the spending bill and debt ceiling package
and try again, or do they try to remove these two
and just pass it based on Democratic votes?
But, again, that can take a while to get done
and Democrats don't feel like they have that time.
- Going through reconciliation is risky to the country
and is a nonstarter.
- President Biden cancels a trip to Chicago
to continue negotiating with lawmakers
and save his agenda from collapse,
while the Senate introduces a measure to avoid a shutdown.
- The last thing the American people need right now
is a government shutdown.
This proposal will prevent one from happening.
- If the government shuts down,
it would be the third time in three years.
Politically, each situation is unique,
but the past couple shutdowns
have not gone well for Republicans.
Polls have shown that voters tend to blame them
more than Democrats for these shutdowns.
- Democrats' reckless taxing and spending spree
will earn it zero votes from Senate Republicans.
- But, hours after promising Republicans
wouldn't vote with Democrats,
there's been a breakthrough in negotiations.
- Today the Senate will pass a continuing resolution
that will eliminate the possibility
of a government shutdown tonight.
The CR we're voting on will keep the government funded
until December 3rd.
- The bill is passed.
- They still have to find a permanent solution
to this by December.
With the government funded,
attention turns back to Democrats' real priority:
the two spending bills they want to get passed in tandem.
- Congress has a number of challenges and deadlines
that they are definitely going to have to address
in the next couple weeks.
Of course, they were able to avoid that infrastructure vote,
to try and hash out a bigger reconciliation plan
and hope that they can,
you know, pass both of those things together.
- Republicans say they will not do their part
to avoid this needless calamity.
So be it.
But they need to stop
playing Russian roulette with the US economy.
- With the American economy.
We've been down this path before,
when you did not have a divided government,
and the party in the majority got the job done.
- On October 7th, Senate leaders announce a short-term deal
to raise the country's debt ceiling.
- We have reached agreement to extend the debt ceiling
through early December.
- The Senate is moving toward the plan I laid out yesterday
to spare the American people a manufactured crisis.
- At this point, if Biden is not able to really address
the debt limit, if congressional Democrats,
who, obviously, have majorities in both chambers,
aren't able to do that,
as well as pass this infrastructure bill
and the bigger social safety net package,
that really is going to put a dent
in the Democratic Party's argument,
as well as their leadership and Biden's agenda.
It's fair to say that Democrats, right now,
believe that they are able to pass this infrastructure bill
and the other economic package,
which has become known as that build back better agenda.
- It's a process.
It's a process. We'll get it done.
- [clamoring] Mr President.