[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 176 (Wednesday, October 6, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6926-S6927]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Debt Ceiling

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, for 2\1/2\ months, the Republicans have 
provided a clear and consistent roadmap for Democratic government to 
raise the debt ceiling. Democrats have had

[[Page S6927]]

2\1/2\ months' notice to use the fast-track, party-line reconciliation 
process, which they have already used happily this year and already 
intend to use once again. But the Democrats who run Washington have 
done nothing. They have squandered week after week after week. The 
Senate has been voting on midlevel nominations. And 2\1/2\ months 
later, our colleagues complain that time is running out to do their 
job. They are frantically asking our side for shortcuts.
  Now, in the past 2 days, I have had the surreal experience of 
watching both the President of the United States and the Senate 
majority leader be asked about the future of the U.S. economy. Their 
respective responses were ``That's up to Mitch McConnell'' or ``Ask 
Mitch McConnell.'' Well, what about the third Democratic leader, the 
Speaker of the House? Well, she has headed to Europe--headed off to 
Europe. I can only presume she hopes the full faith and credit of the 
United States will get sorted out without her.
  That is the level of leadership and accountability the country is 
getting from the Washington Democrats who run the country. These are 
the leadership skills of people who spent 2\1/2\ months doing nothing 
and then complain they are short on time. That is the attitude that has 
gotten Democrats a self-created inflation crisis, border crisis, 
Afghanistan crisis, and free-falling favorability with the American 
people.
  Now, it is not clear whether the Democratic leaders have wasted 2\1/
2\ months because they simply cannot govern or whether they are 
intentionally playing Russian roulette with the economy to try to 
bully--bully--their own Members into going back on their word and 
wrecking the Senate. Either way, it is exactly the kind of recklessness 
that has this unified Democratic government's public approval in total 
free fall--free fall.
  Even now, while the Democratic leader complains that he is short on 
time, he continues to waste time with partisan stunts that are dead on 
arrival. He has scheduled yet another vote this afternoon which he 
knows will fail. The majority has known for 3 months that show votes 
like this would go nowhere.
  This year, Democrats requested and won new powers--new powers--to 
repeatedly reuse the reconciliation process. In the past few days, 
Democrats in both the House and Senate have publicly admitted their 
party could handle--could handle--the debt limit that way. Our 
colleagues have plenty of time to get it done before the earliest 
projected deadline. There would be potential for time agreements to 
wrap it up well before any danger. But the Democratic leaders haven't 
wanted solutions; they have wanted to turn their failure into everybody 
else's crisis. Playing risky games with our economy; using manufactured 
drama to bully their own Members; indulging petty politics instead of 
governing--their entire failed approach to governing in a nutshell, on 
full display for the country to see.