Mitch McConnell claims the spending deal Donald Trump struck with Chuck Schumer will raise the debt ceiling for 18 months

  Last week Donald Trump, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi reached an agreement on a spending deal which we were told would raise the debt ceiling for three months in return for funding Hurricane Harvey relief for the flood victims in Texas.

  This infuriated Republicans, who wanted an 18 month debt ceiling deal so the next battle over the limit would not be held until after the 2018 election. Today Mitch McConnell announced he used a little trickery in the final deal to extend the debt ceiling debate for the 18 months Republicans had hoped for.

  Here is more:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Democrats were too hasty in celebrating the shock spending deal they made with President Donald Trump last week, saying it is not as good as they believe.

“The deal is not quite as good as my counterpart thought it was,” the Senator from Kentucky told the New York Times’ ‘The New Washington’ podcast, explaining that the battle for the debt limit increase will be delayed well beyond the initially agreed December deadline.

McConnell, however, told the Times that the debt limit will not have to be increased until well into 2018 as the newly passed legislation allows the Treasury to apply “extraordinary measures” to move money around and pay off the government’s skyrocketing debt.

“Since I was in charge of drafting the debt ceiling provision that we inserted into the flood bill we likely — almost certainly — are not going to have another debt ceiling discussion until well into 2018,” the senior Republican said.

  Mitch McConnell went on to say this takes away from the win the Democrats have been celebrating and while that may be true I have a different concern. The way I see if the Republicans in the Congress have abdicated their responsibility by placing tools in the hands of the Treasury Department. Is there going to be any oversight?

  The national debt just reached $20 trillion yesterday and it is only going to increase. I have an idea Mitch; instead of allowing the Treasury Department to use “extraordinary measures” to raise the debt ceiling while keeping the people in the dark, how about we start doing something to bring the national debt down? I thought the Republicans were supposed to be the fiscally responsible party…

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium