The US Congress
has approved a deal to lift the country's borrowing limit, days before the
world's largest economy is due to default on its debt.
The bipartisan
measure sped through the Senate by a vote of 63-36, a day after it cleared the
US House of Representatives.
President Joe
Biden has said he will enact the measure into law.
His signature on
the bill will spare the US from a catastrophic default on its $31.4tn (£25tn)
debt.
The country is
forecast to overshoot its current debt ceiling on Monday 5 June.
A default would
limit the government's ability to borrow more money or pay all of its bills. It
would also threaten to wreak havoc overseas, affecting prices and mortgage
rates in other countries.
In Thursday
night's session, the bill passed with support from 44 Democrats and 17
Republicans, plus two independents.
Sixty votes were
required to approve the measure in a 100-seat chamber that Democrats only
narrowly control.
Thirty-one
Republicans were opposed, including a member of the party's leadership in the
chamber, John Barrasso.
Among the four
Democrats who voted against were left-wing senators Bernie Sanders, John
Fetterman and Elizabeth Warren.
Senators first
proposed 11 amendments to the debt ceiling bill, but they were all rejected in
quick order, paving the way for a final vote.
If a single one
of the amendments had passed, the whole bill would have had to be sent back to
the House, leaving little time to ensure final passage of the measure before
the US fell off a fiscal cliff.
"America
can breathe a sigh of relief, a sigh of relief because in this process we are
avoiding default," Democratic Majority leader Chuck Schumer told the
Senate.
In a rare
display of bipartisanship, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told
reporters he would be "proud to support it without delay".
The deal easily
cleared the House on Wednesday evening by a vote of 314-117. Some 165 Democrats
joined 149 Republicans in approving it by the required simple majority.
With Republicans
in control of the lower chamber of Congress and Democrats holding sway in the
Senate and White House, a deal proved elusive for weeks until Mr Biden and
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy inked a compromise last weekend.
The agreement
suspends the debt ceiling, the spending limit set by Congress that determines
how much money the government can borrow, until 1 January 2025.
The legislation
will result in $1.5tn in savings over a decade, the independent Congressional
Budget Office said on
Tuesday.
The contents of
the bill drew objections from both right-wing Republicans and left-wing
Democrats, but there were more than enough political centrists in both parties
to get it over the line.
The last time
the US came this close to overshooting its debt ceiling, in 2011, the credit
agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the country's rating, a move that has
yet to be reversed.
Ahead of the
Senate vote, US stock markets made gains, with the Dow closing 0.5% higher. The
broader S&P 500 index rose by 1% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended the day
1.3% higher.
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