Dems take GOP's short-term debt fix offer, kicking deadline to December

Democrats are planning to accept an offer from Mitch McConnell to let them raise the debt ceiling into December without a GOP filibuster, multiple senators said after a closed-door caucus meeting on Wednesday.

The move effectively kicks the can two months on the fight over the debt. But even as Democrats accepted part of the Senate minority leader’s entreaties, they said they will not bend on rejecting his demands that they use the laborious process of budget reconciliation to pass a longer debt ceiling increase.

Democrats accepted the deal because "Mitch McConnell finally saw the light" on offering a solution that could pass quickly, said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

"We're going to raise the debt ceiling and we're going to go on and pass infrastructure," said Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.). "We're never going to do it through reconciliation."

Democrats' decision tees up a vote as soon as Wednesday night on the short-term debt patch. It also sets the stage for a year-end convergence of Congress' major fiscal agenda items, with government funding currently set to expire on Dec. 3. After weeks of partisan jostling over GOP resistance to a stand-alone debt hike that Democrats warned put the nation at risk of default, the impasse appears to have ended in a pause rather than a resolution -- as both sides claimed victory.