GOP senators frustrated with McConnell deal to raise debt limit, as monthslong standoff appears close to end

Many Senate Republicans on Wednesday were frustrated with a deal Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reached, on a party-line vote, to allow Democrats to raise the debt ceiling — as Congress took one step closer to ending the debt-limit saga that started in the summer, when Republicans first said they would refuse to raise it. 

“I’m not real keen on the idea right now, to be honest with you, because we had a red line,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told Fox News shortly after McConnell, R-Ky., unveiled the proposal to his colleagues at a lunch. 

“Let them do it. They got the votes to do it,” he added. “But we got to look out for Medicare expansion too. You know we want to make sure we do the right thing there too. So it’s kind of got us between a rock and a hard place.” 

Nearly all Senate Republicans earlier this year signed a letter saying they would refuse to vote to increase the debt ceiling in protest of Democrats’ partisan spending. They argued Democrats should raise the debt ceiling using reconciliation to avoid the filibuster. 

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But Senate Democrats refused to take that step, which led to a standoff in October as both parties threatened default if they did not get their way. McConnell relented and backed a temporary debt limit increase until this month, but said Republicans would not vote to increase the debt limit again. 

Now, with potential default looming later in December, McConnell is endorsing a convoluted deal that he says would achieve the result Republicans wanted all along — forcing Democrats to raise the debt ceiling without GOP votes. 

The deal would attach a one-time provision allowing the Senate to increase the debt…