After Bruising Battle, One Democrat Calls for Debt-ceiling Reform
Budget Committee member will push new approach when Dems retake House majority
Democrats and Republicans finally may have been able to come to an agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling and ensure the government can continue to pay its bills.
But it took nearly coming to the point of default — with millions of Americans worrying whether their Social Security or veterans benefits, or other government services they rely upon would be there for them the next month — to get there.
A Democratic member of the House Budget Committee said that she has a better way to keep the federal government able to pay its bills.
President Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unveiled an agreement over the weekend to allow for Congress to raise the federal debt ceiling and avoid a federal default which would have caused a wider economic meltdown.
However, the two reached their accommodation only after months of partisan gamesmanship and negotiations, and the nation coming within days of falling off an economic cliff.
Rep Jan Shakowsky (D-Ill) is calling for reform of how the US government will address the debt ceiling in the future.
“We should just have an end of the debate over paying the bills of the United States of America, that it should be automatic, that it should be like -- you know, during the Trump administration, he passed the debt ceiling three times without any hullabaloo, we should just make it a rule like the 14th Amendment of the Constitution says: We have to pay the bills that are incurred,” the Budget Committee member said. “And there should not be any vote. We should not have to have any vote.
“So when the Democrats take the House of Representatives back, which I think we will in the next election, one of the first things we should do is to drop the idea of a vote on the debt ceiling and just make it automatic,” she added.
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