Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Max Baucus (D-MT), who chair the Senate Budget Committee and Senate Finance Committee, respectively, drew a line in the sand Monday and proclaimed they stand with President Barack Obama in calling for a clean debt limit increase.
“Democrats are very interested in negotiating with Republicans over replacing sequestration, investing in economic growth, fixing our broken tax code, and tackling our long-term fiscal challenges fairly and responsibly,” the two senators wrote in a joint letter. “But President Obama has been clear that he is not going to negotiate over the debt limit, and Congressional Democrats stand behind him strongly.”
As House Republicans weigh shutting down the government in an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act, leaders have been urging their Tea Party colleagues to pick a more politically viable fight and extract concessions from Democrats over the debt limit, which is set to expire in mid-October.