Democrats press ahead with debt-limit vote amid standoff with the GOP

McConnell in August set out to cast Senate Democrats as so eager to adopt Sanders’ “socialist shopping list” that they were willing to move without Republicans. He said they sought to leave “our kids and grandkids with a massive bill. They deserve to have total ownership of that decision.”

In 2011, 2012 and 2013, however, McConnell thought differently about his role in ironing out partisan impasses in order to avert default and keep the government funded and operating. In 2018, former Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) took to the floor to hail his Kentucky colleague and friend for collaborating with Democrats, including then-Vice President Biden, to resolve past debt-ceiling and funding emergencies. Alexander said he cribbed the list of accomplishments he read into the Senate record from McConnell’s own account of highlights of his years as majority leader.

How did McConnell characterize staving off default and reaching across the aisle? As “concrete legislative results for the American people,” Alexander said admiringly three years ago.