The Hill News

Congress can't afford to reprise its down-to-the-wire negotiations over the 2011 budget in the upcoming fight over the debt ceiling, a top Senate Democrat said Tuesday.

Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate's majority whip, warned against the type of last-minute negotiations that characterized the fight over funding the government the rest of this fiscal year, which wrapped only late Friday night after days of high-level discussions.

"We cannot play chicken, we cannot have a big 'high noon' showdown on the debt ceiling," Durbin said on WDWS radio in Illinois.

"We just went through this big showdown … and there was a lot at stake," Durbin explained. "This debt ceiling is dramatically more important and more serious. What we're talking about is the economic reputation of America."

Both Republicans and Democrats are jockeying for position over the impending fight over the debt ceiling. Lawmakers must raise the legal limit the gover! nment is allowed to borrow by the end of May or face a default by the U.S. on its debt obligations.

Republicans in control of the House have maintained that failing to raise the limit isn't an option, but they've also said that they expect major reforms in exchange for their votes.

The Obama administration and Democrats, however, have insisted on a "clean" debt-ceiling vote, with none of the extraneous, attached measures that characterized the fight over a continuing resolution for the rest of 2011.