(Bloomberg) -- A House panel on Wednesday advanced stand-alone legislation to suspend the federal debt limit through December 2022, setting up a potential floor vote later in the day.
But the Rules Committee action, a party-line 7-3 vote, is little more than symbolic; even the panel’s Democratic chairman says Senate Republicans are likely to block the legislation.
“I hope they take this second chance to do the right thing” and “to avoid a total economic meltdown,” Rules Chairman Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, said of Senate Republicans.
But the panel’s top Republican, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, responded that Republicans will not help Democrats raise the debt ceiling “as long as this majority insists on spending money like drunken sailors on shore leave.”
“They and they alone must act,” Cole added.
McGovern responded it’s clear Democrats will have to act alone.
“The question is, why won’t the Senate Republican allow a clear up-or-down vote?” McGovern asked, adding the use of a procedural roadblock in that chamber to allowing even just a vote makes no sense to him.
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