Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell Announce Bill to End Shutdown, Raise Debt Ceiling
On Wednesday, Sens. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took to the floor of the U.S. Senate to announce that they have come to a deal which will reopen the federal government and raise the nation’s borrowing limit.
“This compromise we reached will provide our economy with the stability it desperately needs,” Reid began.
Reid said that the nation had come close to “the brink” of default. “But in the end, political adversaries set aside their differences and disagreements to prevent that disaster,” Reid said.
Reid said that the bill will fund the government through January and raise the debt ceiling into February. “Perhaps most importantly, this legislation ends a standoff that ground the work of Washington to a halt this fall,” he added.
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“This is not a time for pointing fingers of blame. This is a time for reconciliation,” Reid concluded.
“There’s a lot more we need to do to get our nation’s fiscal house in order,” McConnell said after Reid had concluded. “Hopefully, once we’ve gotten past the drama of the moment, we can get to work on it.”
McConnell praised the sequester cuts which will remain in place in the Senate compromise. “This legislation is the largest spending reduction bill of the last quarter century and the largest deficit reduction bill since 1981 that didn’t include a tax hike,” he said.
McConnell tore into the Affordable Care Act, saying the refusal to delay a series of aspects of the law “reflects a kind of stubborn ideological obsession” on the part of the law’s supporters. “But for today, the relief we hope for is to reopen the government, avoid default, and protect the historic cuts we achieved under the Budget Control Act.”
“This is far less than many of us had hoped for, frankly,” McConnell concluded. “But it’s far better than what some had sought.”
Watch the clip below via CNN:
[Photo via screen grab ]
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