Senate Republicans warm to hiking the debt limit in their sweeping party-line bill
Senate Republicans are warming up to the idea of including a debt ceiling increase in their big party-line bill to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are warming to the idea of including a debt ceiling increase in their big party-line bill to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has told Republican senators that he’s now open to raising the debt limit in a broader spending package, according to a source familiar with his conversations. That’s a shift for Thune in the direction of a budget blueprint adopted by House Republicans, which included a $4 trillion debt limit hike.
The Senate's separate budget plan, by contrast, avoided the issue, one of several major conflicts between the two measures to provide funding for Trump's policy priorities. But now, as the Trump administration pushes the chambers to resolve their differences, some Republican senators are changing their tune after initially preferring to address the debt limit question separately.
“I’m warming up to it, as well,” Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., told NBC News about a debt limit increase in the bill.
Young said he wants a fiscal commission or some “actionable plan” to tackle the long-term solvency problems of Medicare and Social Security, saying it’d be “unconscionable” to go through the budget process “and not commit to revolving them.”
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