Members of the United States Congress have less than one month to come to an agreement on raising the debt ceiling. US Representatives are organizing to elect a new leader, and the process to move the debt limit higher starts in their chamber.
United States Senator Mike Rounds says he believes Congress can reach an agreement on increasing the debt ceiling by its deadline. He says men and women in the Senate acknowledge they have to raise the amount of money the federal government can borrow.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a real knock-down, drag-out to get it through the Senate, because we’ve already agreed in our budget that we knew that we’d have to increase the debt limit regardless of how we handled– you know, once we agreed on the budget, it basically said we knew that we would be increasing the debt limit,” Rounds says.
Rounds says some lawmakers want to put an extended date on the debt ceiling increase to establish consistency and certainty. He says that time frame is up for debate.
“The question is do you do it for a year, do you do it for a year and a half, do you do it for two years, do you do it for three years? And that then allows you how much you bump the debt limit up to,” Rounds says.
Rounds says members of Congress must decide on how much to raise the debt ceiling and for how long. Their deadline is November 5th.