Schumer Floor Remarks On Senate Passage Of Legislation To Extend The Debt Ceiling And Avoid A First-Ever Default
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor in advance of the passage of legislation to extend the debt ceiling and avoid a first-ever default. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks:
In a few moments, the Senate will pass an extension of the debt limit through early December, avoiding a first-ever, Republican-manufactured default on the national debt.
On Monday morning, I said we needed to pass a bill to address the debt limit by the end of the week. And that is exactly what we did.
Republicans played a dangerous and risky partisan game, and I am glad that their brinksmanship did not work. For the good of America’s families, for the good of our economy, Republicans must recognize in the future that they should approach fixing the debt limit in a bipartisan way.
What is needed now is a long-term solution so we don’t go through this risky drama every few months, and we hope Republicans will join in enacting a long term solution to the debt limit in December. We are ready to work with them.
Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans insisted they wanted a solution to the debt ceiling, but said Democrats must raise it alone by going through a drawn-out, convoluted and risky reconciliation process.
That was simply unacceptable to my caucus, and yesterday Senate Republicans finally recognized that their obstruction was not going to work.
I thank, very much thank, my Democratic colleagues for our showing our unity in solving this Republican-manufactured crisis. Despite immense opposition from Leader McConnell and members of his conference, our caucus held together and we have pulled our country back from the cliff’s edge that Republicans tried to push us over.
This is a temporary but necessary and important fix. I appreciate that at the end of the day, we were able to raise the debt limit without a convoluted and unnecessary reconciliation process that—until today—the Republican Leader claimed was the only way to address the debt limit.
Let me say that again: today’s vote is proof positive that the debt limit can be addressed without going through the reconciliation process – just as Democrats have been saying for months.
The solution is for Republicans to either join us in raising the debt limit, or stay out of the way and let Democrats address the debt limit ourselves.
Those are the two choices. And it’s very simple.
Senate Democrats want a long-term solution to the debt limit to make sure financial markets remain stable and our economic recovery stays on track. America’s Full Faith and Credit must never be used as a political bargaining chip. I hope my Republican colleagues relent from trying to make it one when we revisit this issue soon.
So now that Republican brinksmanship has relented, Senate Democrats will focus on passing the Build Back Better Agenda, so we can finally build up ladders of opportunity for people to climb up to the middle class, to help people already in the middle class stay there, to fight climate change and create the good-paying jobs of tomorrow, and rekindle that sunny American optimism that has long been the core of our national identity.
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