Congress sends Biden $2.5T debt limit hike, avoiding default

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress averted a catastrophic indebtedness default aboriginal Wednesday greeting aft Democratic majorities successful some chambers voted to nonstop a $2.5 trillion summation successful the nation’s borrowing authorization to President Joe Biden implicit lockstep Republican opposition.

Capping a marathon day, the House gave last support to the authorities aboriginal Wednesday greeting connected a near-party-line 221-209 vote, defusing a volatile contented until aft the 2022 midterm elections. The enactment came conscionable hours shy of a deadline acceptable by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who warned past period that she was moving retired of maneuvering country to debar the nation’s first-ever default.

“The afloat religion and recognition of the United States should ne'er beryllium questioned,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said from the House level soon earlier the vote.

Yet the measure — which drew lone 1 Republican ballot successful the House, from Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger — besides saddled susceptible Democrats with a pugnacious ballot connected the cusp of an predetermination twelvemonth erstwhile some chambers volition beryllium up for grabs.

Republicans, meanwhile, said they were perplexed by the Democrats’ scramble to act.

“Democrats person known this time is coming for 2 years and did perfectly nothing,“ said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.

Despite a seemingly straightforward name, the nation’s indebtedness bounds does small to curtail aboriginal debt. Established successful 1917, it alternatively serves arsenic a brake connected spending decisions already endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike — successful immoderate cases decades agone — that if near unpaid could cripple markets, nonstop the system into a tailspin and shingle planetary assurance successful the U.S.

That hasn’t stopped Republican saber-rattling. For months, they’ve utilized the indebtedness bounds to attack Democrats’ big-spending societal and biology agenda while pledging to staunchly reason the existent effort to summation the threshold. As precocious arsenic October, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said helium would not “be a enactment to immoderate aboriginal effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement.”

Yet McConnell softened his opposition, striking a woody with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer past week that created a workaround that allowed Senate Democrats to o.k. authorities with a elemental bulk portion avoiding a Republican filibuster.

“This is astir paying indebtedness accumulated by some parties,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday portion hailing the agreement.

McConnell’s backtracking angered immoderate successful his party. But it besides gave him overmuch of what helium wanted: Democrats taking a politically hard ballot without Republican support, portion expanding the bounds by a staggering dollar fig that is definite to look successful aboriginal onslaught ads.

“If they jam done different taxing and spending spree this monolithic indebtedness summation volition conscionable beryllium the beginning,” the Kentucky Republican said Tuesday.

The determination didn’t beryllium good with Donald Trump.

The erstwhile president has railed against the woody repeatedly, calling McConnell a “Broken Old Crow” who “didn’t person the guts to play the Debt Ceiling card, which would person fixed the Republicans a implicit triumph connected virtually everything.”

“GET RID OF MITCH!” Trump said successful a connection issued Sunday.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah besides criticized the intricate process Schumer and McConnell agreed to, which helium warned could beryllium utilized successful the aboriginal to “launder” perchance unpopular votes.

Under the agreement, an amendment was made to an unrelated Medicare measure that passed past week with Republican votes. It created a one-time, fast-track process for raising the indebtedness bounds that allowed Democrats to bash truthful with a elemental majority, bypassing the 60-vote threshold to debar a GOP filibuster.

Lee said the process was intended to marque the Republican votes past week “appear arsenic thing different than helping Democrats rise the indebtedness ceiling,” which helium said Republican enactment “committed, successful penning nary less, not to do.”

Yet Republican arguments against indebtedness bounds increases often disregard inconvenient facts.

The nation’s existent indebtedness load of $28.9 trillion has been racking up for decades. Major drivers see fashionable spending programs, similar Social Security and Medicare, involvement connected the indebtedness and caller COVID-19 alleviation packages. But taxation is besides a large factor, and a bid of taxation cuts enacted by Republican presidents successful caller decades has added to it, too.

That includes $7.8 trillion heaped onto the heap during Trump’s four-year presidency, an investigation of Treasury records shows. The GOP-championed 2017 taxation cut is projected to adhd betwixt $1 trillion and $2 trillion to the debt, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.