White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to a pair of proposals from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to avert a default on the debt limit Wednesday, telling reporters, “We could get this done today, we don't need to kick the can, we don't need to go through a cumbersome process that every day brings additional risks.”
Psaki told reporters Wednesday, “there's been no formal offer made — a press release is not a formal offer, adding “even the scant details that have been reported present more complicated more difficult options than the one that is quite obvious in the President's view, and it's in front of the faces of every member up on the Hill.”
Some more context: In a statement on Wednesday, McConnell said that Republicans have "already made it clear" that they would "assist in expediting" a process known as reconciliation, which would allow Democrats to raise the debt limit without GOP votes. Democrats have been generally opposed to that idea, however, calling it too unwieldy, time-consuming and risky.
In addition to that, McConnell said that Republicans "will also allow Democrats to use normal procedures to pass an emergency debt limit extension at a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels into December."
The Senate had been slated to take a procedural vote later in the afternoon on whether to advance a House-passed bill to suspend the nation's debt limit until December 2022, and Republicans had been expected to block the measure.
Psaki told reporters at Wednesday’s briefing that the White House will “obviously be in close touch with them as we will continue to be, and we'll see where we where we are at the end of today.”