Even as the European debt crisis rocks U.S. markets, congressional Democrats are poised to go on a huge spending spree during the next few weeks, potentially creating hundreds of billions of dollars in new red ink just before the Memorial Day recess.

Congress is looking at a crush of votes on big-ticket items sure to set up a debate on deficits less than six months before the November elections, The Hill reports.

Over the next three weeks, Democratic leaders are looking to send President Barack Obama a slew of measures costing more than $200 billion, according to The Hill. They include:

* A multiyear extension of unemployment benefits likely to cost tens of billions of dollars
* An extension of expiring tax provisions
* Medicare doctor payments totaling $180 billion
* Afghanistan war supplemental spending totaling $33 billion

Virtually none of these costs will be paid for, creating new massive deficits – a fact that Republicans are emphasizing as they approach midterm elections in November.

Republican leaders have been pointing recently at Greece’s dismal fiscal situation as a warning, claiming that the United States will be headed for a similar fate unless the deficits are curtailed.

“We are on a path which will go to where Greece is, there's no question about that, if we don't adjust our present financial house,” Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said during an interview Monday night on the Fox Business Network.

“If we continue to spend much more than we take in . . . we'll double our debt in five years and triple it in 10 years and essentially be where Greece is in about seven years,” he said.

“So we know we are headed in that direction unless we do something about reducing the level of debt and reducing the level of our spending.”