The House and Senate are in a sort of holding pattern Tuesday, moving toward potentially getting a lot of stuff done on dealing with the impending debt ceiling deadline and President Joe Biden’s big family and climate bill, but not necessarily achieving much. The House has made room for all kinds of action on its schedule for the day, but it’s all listed as “possible”—“possible consideration of the FY22 National Defense Authorization Act,” and “possible consideration of legislation related to the debt limit.” Meanwhile, the Senate will churn through a few nominations, including Jessica Rosenworcel at the FCC. So at least something critical is happening. Leadership is considering Dec. 15 the drop-dead date for getting the debt ceiling hiked or suspended, and seem pretty confident that they can deal with it this week, well before the deadline. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would like to dispense with it ASAP, as he has a packed agenda to try to wrap up before Christmas. Whether Republicans will help with that is in question, since it is in their interest to create as many roadblocks as possible to Democrats achieving any of their goals. While Schumer is bullish about the progress he’s made in working on some kind of agreement with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, how they achieve getting this done when pretty much every Republican is on record saying they are to going to help Democrats pay the bills the country has previously accrued remains a mystery. Schumer said Tuesday morning, “Over the past few days, we have made good progress on this issue, and I’m optimistic that we will be able to prevent the awful prospect of the U.S. defaulting on its sovereign debt for the first time ever.” McConnell added, “The country is never going to default.” He said that Monday night. “We frequently have drama associated with this decision. But I can assure you the country will never default.” Read more