House averts U.S. default, sends bill to Biden

WASHINGTON >> The House gave final approval on Tuesday to legislation that would raise the debt ceiling into early December, postponing the threat of a first-ever federal default even as Republicans vow to reimpose their blockade on a longer-term solution.

The vote was 219-206 to pass the bill, clearing it for President Joe Biden, who was expected to sign it, only days before the Oct. 18 date by which the government is set to breach the statutory borrowing limit and be unable to meet its obligations. The legislation lifts the debt ceiling by $480 billion, which the Treasury Department has estimated is enough to last until at least Dec. 3, setting up yet another deadline for Congress to break its logjam over the issue.

The temporary extension was necessary because Republicans had blocked Democrats’ legislation to provide a longer-term increase, demanding that they do so through a complex and time-consuming budget maneuver instead of through normal channels.

Last week, a handful of Senate Republicans temporarily dropped their party’s monthslong obstruction to a debt limit measure and voted to break a filibuster of the shortterm bill, allowing it to come to a vote in that chamber. But Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, has since warned Biden that his party would not break ranks again.

On Tuesday, every House Republican voted against raising the debt ceiling even for a matter of weeks, as Democrats pleaded for bipartisan support.

“What do you have against our own economy, where this catastrophe of unbelievable proportions could have impacts for over 100 years?” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said, addressing Republicans before the vote. “Don’t you care about that?”

In passing the temporary increase, Democrats were clearing the way to refocus on pushing Biden’s legislative agenda through Congress. They hoped to use the coming weeks to resolve intraparty divisions over a sprawling domestic policy bill that is intended to address climate change, shore up public education and health care benefits, provide for paid leave and home care, and increase taxes on businesses and the wealthy.

The party is wrestling with how to narrow the package’s original $3.5 trillion price to about $2 trillion. Pelosi warned Democrats on Monday that “difficult decisions must be made very soon” on how to do so.