Senate Democrats on Monday outlined a plan to bypass the Republican filibuster to pass legislation to expand Medicare and give more drug price negotiation powers to the federal government.
That prompted a warning from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday, who warned on the floor that the GOP won’t raise the U.S. national debt ceiling if the bill cannot garner bipartisan support.
“Here’s the comedy, they won’t let Republicans have any say in this monstrosity, but they want our help raising their credit card to make it happen,” McConnell said. “Democrats want Republicans to help them raise the debt limit so they can keep spending historic sums of money with zero Republican input and zero Republican votes,” he added.
But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said (pdf) the measure is needed to make “education, health care, child care, and housing more affordable.”
He added that Democrats would pass an initial resolution, which will lay out the package’s numbers and policies, before senators leave Washington for a month-long recess.
The $3.5 trillion package was dubbed by Democrats as “human infrastructure” in hopes of making it an easier sell to voters. The legislation contains a number of provisions Republicans have decried as left-wing, including climate-related regulations and amnesty for illegal immigrants.
In response, McConnell on Monday described the bill as a “monstrosity” and said it was written without any Republican support, saying that “if they want 50 lockstep Democratic votes to spend trillions and trillions more, they can find 50 Democratic votes to finance it. If they don’t want Republicans’ input. They don’t need our help.”
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in a statement, said that they will plan on passing the measure along party lines via budget reconciliation, which requires a 51-vote majority and bypasses the filibuster.
