The US House of Representatives voted to increase the national borrowing limit, with 314 votes in favor and 117 votes against, marking a crucial step to avoid a catastrophic default. The Senate is expected to follow suit and approve the measure by the end of the week.
US lawmakers voted Wednesday to raise the national borrowing limit as a crucial first step to averting a catastrophic default, greenlighting a pact struck between Washington’s warring parties after weeks of brinkmanship and fraught backroom deal-making.
Hammered out between Democratic President Joe Biden and the Republicans in the House of Representatives, the measure suspends the debt ceiling through 2024, slightly cutting government spending next year.
Biden hailed the 314-117 vote as a “critical step” to protecting the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery that had been achieved through “bipartisan compromise.”
The drama capped a tense few days on Capitol Hill, with the Treasury expecting to run out of money as soon as Monday.
The Republican majority in the House needed help from dozens of Democrats to fend off a right-wing rebellion —71 conservatives voted no—and advance the deal to the Senate, which is expected to follow suit by the end of the week.
“The consequences of slipping past the deadline would reverberate across the world and take years to recover from,” Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democratic-led Senate, warned ahead of the lower chamber’s vote.
Leadership challenge?
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the proposed spending limits for 2024 and 2025 would trim nearly $1.5 trillion from projected federal budget deficits over the next decade. The total debt is more than $31 trillion.
The vote resulted from weeks of on-off talks between the McCarthy and Biden teams, with Democrats accusing Republicans of holding the economy “hostage” by insisting on spending cuts to accompany the hike in the borrowing cap.
Some hardliners have openly mused about using a new power granted by McCarthy as part of his pitch for the speaker ship in January to call for a snap vote to oust him.
The bill will need 60 votes in the 100-member Senate, and party bosses urged their members to cooperate on a swift rubber stamp vote they hope to hold as early as Thursday evening.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP
