WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved a measure to lift the nation's borrowing limit by 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars, just one day before the deadline set by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for lawmakers to take action to prevent a default.
The upper chamber voted 50-49 along party lines to raise the debt limit to roughly 31 trillion dollars, after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer struck a deal to allow Democrats to approve the measure through simple-majority votes in the evenly-split Senate.
The Democrats-held House of Representatives is expected to quickly clear the legislation, which will then be sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.
The measure would increase the debt limit by 2.5 trillion, which is expected to last until 2023 without the need for another vote to raise the borrowing cap, avoiding another partisan fight over the debt ceiling issue before the midterm elections next year.
Republicans previously refused to support Democrats' efforts to raise the debt ceiling, arguing that Democrats should deal with the crisis on their own, since they control both chambers of Congress and the White House, while complaining about Democrats' lack of bipartisanship in crafting major spending bills.
Democrats, however, noted that raising the debt limit does not authorize new federal spending, but only allows the Department of the Treasury to borrow additional funds to cover expenditures that have already been approved by Congress, including COVID-19 relief bills and the tax cuts rolled out during the administration of former President Donald Trump.
After weeks of trading blames and playing a game of chicken, lawmakers in October agreed to extend the debt ceiling through early December, temporarily staving off an economic disaster.
In mid-November, Yellen urged Congress to raise the federal government's debt limit by Dec. 15 to avoid a potential default.
"I cannot overstate how critical it is that Congress address this issue. America must pay its bills on time and in full. If we do not, we will eviscerate our current recovery," the treasury secretary said earlier before the Senate Banking Committee.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warned in late November that the U.S. Department of the Treasury would most likely run out of cash before the end of December if Congress fails to raise the debt limit. Enditem
