Sen. Rand Paul has a reputation for forcing his GOP colleagues to take tough votes, and he’s already got a zinger in mind as the Senate prepares for another all-night “vote-a-rama” on Friday.
Before Senate Republicans can adopt their revamped budget framework, the Kentucky Republican plans to offer just one amendment: a proposal to substantially shrink the GOP’s current plan to raise the debt limit by $5 trillion under the party-line package they’re trying to clear this year to cut taxes, boost military budgets, ramp up border security spending and more. Instead, Paul’s amendment would allow Republicans to clear a $500 billion increase to the U.S. borrowing limit.
Raising the debt limit by $500 billion would only buy Congress a few months before lawmakers would have to vote again to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its more than $36 trillion national debt, whereas leadership’s current plan is designed to take the politically thorny issue off the table until after the midterms. And that’s Paul’s point.