Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the chairman of the conservative Senate Republican Leadership Committee, is threatening to use “every procedural tool” at his disposal to block the Senate’s passage of a bill to increase the debt ceiling if it doesn’t. include “substantial” reforms.
Lee could drag out a bill for days, something negotiators may now have to factor into their timeline as they scramble to reach a deal before the nation defaults.
“I will use every procedural tool at my disposal to prevent a debt ceiling deal that does not contain substantial spending and budget reforms. I fear that things are moving in that direction. If they do, this proposal will not go smoothly in the Senate,” Lee said he tweeted Thursday morning in response to media reports that White House negotiators and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) are nearing an agreement on spending levels.
Lee has a number of tools at his disposal to block any debt limit deal.
He could insist on a full reading of the bill and refuse to agree to waive motions to skip other time-consuming procedural steps in the Senate.
The final deal is likely to fall short of major reforms included in the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which the House passed last month.
That bill would raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $4.8 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years.
Lee earlier this month was the spearhead a letter signed by 43 Republican senators warning that they will not vote to advance “any bill that raises the debt ceiling without substantial spending and budget reforms.”
But any debt limit bill supported by McCarthy would get enough Republican votes to pass the Senate, even if it did not include what Lee and other conservatives would consider “substantial spending and budget reforms.”
