The senate of the United States has passed the debt ceiling bill averting a U.S. debt default. The bill now heads to the president’s table for final approval.
The Democratic controlled Senate of the United States has finally passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act making it one step away from becoming law. The debt ceiling bill which has now been passed in both the houses is said to have averted a major financial disaster which would have caused the American Economy go into recession.
The debt ceiling drama which was going on for months has finally ended after president Joe Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached an agreement and the bill was passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The bill passed with a vote tally of 314-117 in the house of representatives and 63-36 in the senate.
The debt ceiling bill suspends the U.S. debt ceiling till 1 January 2025 through the next presidential elections.
The debt ceiling bill increases defense spending to $886 billion in 2024 and to $896 billion in 2025 with a 3% and 1% year on year increase.
The bill includes conservative measures to recover roughly $28 billion in unclaimed Covid Relief funds, cut $1.4 billion in IRS funding, and restructure the energy project permitting process. The bill is also set to resume student loan payments after a long pause since the Covid 19 pandemic began.
Debt ceiling bill passes in Senate
The bipartisan bill was passed in the Senate and is now sent to the president’s desk. U.S. president Joe Biden.
The debt ceiling bill passed the democratic majority Senate with 63 votes in favour and 36 against the bill which needed 60 votes as a threshold. The bill passed with 44 in-favour votes from democrats, 17 from republicans and 2 from independents.
Thirty-one Republicans opposed the bipartisan bill, including John Barrasso, a member of the party’s in-house leadership.
Left-leaning senators Elizabeth Warren, John Fetterman, and Bernie Sanders were among the four Democrats who dissented.
After all 100 senate agreed to bring the bill in the senate, 11 amendments were discussed but they were rejected, promptly passing the legislation. Even if one of the amendments was approved, it had to be sent back to the house leaving no time to avoid the debt catastrophe sending the American economy into recession.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told the Senate that America can breathe a sigh of relief as they have almost avoided the debt default.
“We avoided a disastrous default that would have destroyed our economy and caused unimaginable suffering to families,” he tweeted.
Joe Biden declares from Oval Office, “Crisis Averted”
U.S. president Joe Biden said in his first speech from the Oval Office that a big crisis for the United States has been averted. Joe Biden used the moment to urge the Americans to bridge the divide between two parties and remarked what could be done if both are together. He said that Democrats and Republicans should not see each other as adversaries but as fellow Americans.
Biden also thanked Kevin McCarthy who was his republican counterpart who finally agreed on a bill after months of negotiations. Joe Biden is running for the U.S. presidential elections in 2024 while Republican Kevin McCarthy is a Trump supporter. Kevin McCarthy was a little bit in touch with former president Donald Trump throughout the negotiation process.
Joe Biden said that he would sign the bill on Saturday making it a law to officially end the debt ceiling drama till 1 January 2025.
