Senator Joe Manchin said Monday that Democrats should raise the debt ceiling through reconcilation so they're not dependent on Republican votes even as Chuck Schumer plans to bring up another doomed attempt to get the GOP on board.
'They shouldn't rule out anything. We just can't let the debt ceiling lapse. We just can't,' Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, told reporters on Capitol Hill.
'Whatever they have to do,' he added.
Schumer, meanwhile, set a Friday deadline to get a bill raising the nation's borrowing limit to President Joe Biden's desk.
The Senate Majority Leader vowed to bring up a House-passed bill that would raise the debt limit through the midterms vote another vote this week.
'We aren't asking Republicans to support it when it comes time for a vote. We only ask that they get out of the way as Democrats pass it on our own, just as the majority party did in the early 2000s,' he said in a speech on the Senate floor Monday afternoon.
But in order to move that House-passed legislation forward, at least 10 Republicans would need to vote for it. And Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed none of his GOP lawmakers will do so.
Republicans have already shot down two other attempts by Democratic leaders to raise the debt ceiling this way.
Senator Joe Manchin said Democrats should raise the debt ceiling through reconcilation so they're not dependent on Republican votes
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer plans to bring up another doomed attempt to get the GOP on board with hiking borrowing limit
If Democrats have to raise the debt ceiling through reconciliation - the legislative process that allows them to move a bill forward with a simple majority instead of the 60-vote threshold - they would have to raise the ceiling by a certain amount. The House-passed bill, which was approved Wednesday 219-212, raises it through a certain date - December of 2022.
If Democrats raise it by a certain amount, Republicans are sure to use that against them in the midterm elections as they try to retake control of Congress.
Democrats and Republicans are in a stand off over the next move although McConnell has made it clear he is standing firm.
'Since mid-July, Republicans have clearly stated that Democrats will need to raise the debt limit on their own. All year, your party has chosen to pursue staggering, 'transformational' spending through unprecedented use of the party-line reconciliation process,' McConnell wrote in a letter to Biden on Monday.
Manchin, meanwhile, ruled out nixing the filibuster - as the 60-vote threshold is known - as he and fellow moderate Senator Kyrsten Sinema have come under fire for having too much power to stop Biden's agenda.
Under the parliamentary rules of the Senate, an individual senator has significant leverage to negotiate legislation and use their vote.
'The filibuster has nothing to do with debt ceiling. Basically, we have other tools that we can use and if we have to use them we should use them,' Manchin said.
'Forget the filibuster, OK? We can prevent default,' he noted, 'there's a way to do that. There's a couple other tools that we have that we can use. Takes a little bit of time. It's going to be a little bit of pain, long vote-a-ramas.' Vote-a-rams are all night voting sessions in the Senate as lawmakers plow through a series of amendments.
The Treasury Department warned the nation could deplete its borrowing
