Democrats Pessimistic About Passing Debt Ceiling Hike In "Lame Duck"

Democrats are increasingly pessimistic that they can strike a debt ceiling deal during the “lame duck” session of Congress - the period after the midterm elections and before the new Congress comes into session in January.

• Democrats don’t believe they have the requisite 50 Democrat Senate votes to legislation a ceiling hike via budget reconciliation to avoid a GOP filibuster.
• • Moderate Democrat Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has indicated he won’t support raising the debt ceiling via reconciliation.
• Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said a debt ceiling deal, “would not be done this year by reconciliation. It takes too much time. We have three weeks and there is too much else on the agenda."
• Politico writes that a failure to legislate a debt ceiling rise will increase “the risk of a highly partisan, market-rattling fiscal confrontation next year.”
• Bloomberg: “A showdown over the debt ceiling risks a repeat of a 2011 confrontation that brought the US within two days of defaulting on its debt, resulting in global markets slumping and Standard & Poor’s downgrading the US’s sovereign rating.”