Senate Republicans Offer to Allow Debt Ceiling Increase Until December

The proposal offered a way out of the short-term fiscal crisis, and a means for Republicans to defuse criticism that they were acting recklessly, but only put off the threat of a default.

WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell, bowing to the immediate threat of a federal default, said Republicans would allow Democrats to raise the debt ceiling into December, but he refused to lift his blockade of a long-term increase in the government’s borrowing limit.

The offer appeared to reflect some nervousness on the part of Republicans in an escalating standoff over the government’s borrowing limit, as a first-ever default on federal debt looms in as few as 12 days. Mr. McConnell has led his party’s refusal to allow Democrats to even take up legislation to lift the cap, instead demanding that they employ a complicated and time-consuming budget maneuver called reconciliation to do so.

But in a statement on Wednesday, he said Republicans would “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.”