The Associated Press (Shanghai Editor Xia Junxiong) reported that on Tuesday, local time, the Republicans in the US Senate rejected the Democrats’ vote to suspend the US debt ceiling. The day before, Republican senators vetoed a bill passed in the House of Representatives last week to finance the government and suspend the debt ceiling.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen wrote to Speaker of the House of Representatives Pelosi on Tuesday, stating that the United States may hit the debt ceiling before October 18 and Congress has less than three weeks to resolve the debt ceiling issue.
The U.S. federal government’s funding expiration time is even more urgent, and will expire at midnight local time on Thursday. This means that U.S. congressmen only have two days to avoid a possible government shutdown.
Democratic Senate leader Schumer again proposed a vote on raising the debt ceiling on Tuesday. As long as the Republicans agree to vote, 48 Democratic senators and two independent members allied with them can pass the bill.
However, Republican Senate leader McConnell blocked the vote. He said that Democrats should include the increase in the debt ceiling in the $3.5 trillion spending bill. McConnell stated on Monday that the Republican Party is willing to vote for the government financing bill that does not include an increase in the debt ceiling, but will not provide Republican votes on raising the debt ceiling.
It is worth mentioning that the last time the US federal government was shut down was the Trump administration, which lasted 35 days and finally ended in January 2019.
The government shutdown or debt default will be a big setback for Biden and the Democratic Party, who previously portrayed itself as a responsible ruling party. If the U.S. government shuts down, hundreds of thousands of federal government workers will be forced to take vacations. And if there is a debt default, the US economic recovery may be hit.
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