The US Congress passed a bill that increased the federal debt limit. In the bill submitted to President Joe Biden’s signature, the federal debt ceiling was increased by 2 trillion 500 million dollars to a total of 31 trillion 400 million.
With the approval of the bill, which has been among the main topics of the Congress’s agenda for months, the risk of the government’s default has disappeared.
The federal borrowing limit was temporarily increased from $28.4 trillion to $28.9 trillion in a vote in October, thus temporarily avoiding the risk of the government defaulting.
After the Senate’s Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reached an agreement last week, the bill was again put to vote in the Senate yesterday. In the Senate, consisting of 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, with the approval of the Democrats, the bill was passed by 50 votes to 49. The bill, which was passed in the House of Representatives with 221 votes to 209, thus completed the approval process in the Congress and was presented to President Joe Biden for signature.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also called for a vote this week on the bill, which caused conflict between the two parties in Congress.
The federal debt of the United States had increased by $7 trillion to 85 billion under former Republican President Donald Trump. The main reasons for this were the spending and tax cuts to fight the Corona virus pandemic.
While Democrats attribute the need to increase the federal debt ceiling partly to this increase that emerged during Trump’s term, Republicans argue that the main reason behind the bill is President Joe Biden’s $ 1 trillion 75 million social infrastructure package plan.