On Wednesday, Congress voted to raise the national debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion to avoid default and a potential global economic crisis.
According to USA Today, the House approved the legislation in a vote of 221-209, just hours after the Senate passed the bill in a 50-49 party-line vote. The increase is expected to last until 2023.
At present, the national debt stands at just over $29 trillion.
President Joe Biden, who is expected to sign the bill once it reaches his desk, signed a bill last week to fast-track raising the country’s debt limit.
The United States pays its debts when they are due. That’s why today, I signed a bill to fast-track the process to raise our debt limit. pic.twitter.com/Rx4MNC1XS9
— President Biden (@POTUS) December 11, 2021
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified lawmakers that the U.S. would have reached its debt ceiling by Wednesday had the bill not been passed. Meanwhile, Treasury Department officials and experts warned that not passing the legislation would have resulted in the government defaulting on the national debt, bringing about a global recession.
The vote comes after months of debate between Republicans and Democrats. While some Republicans opposed raising the national debt ceiling, Democrats called the increase necessary.
In October, as The Daily Wire reported, Sen. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered Democrats a short-term suspension to the debt-ceiling so that they could come up with a more permanent solution. They had a December deadline.
“This will moot Democrats’ excuses about the time crunch they created and give the unified Democratic government more than enough time to pass standalone debt limit legislation through reconciliation,” McConnell said in a statement at the time.
“Alternatively, if Democrats abandon their efforts to ram through another historically reckless taxing and spending spree that will hurt families and help China, a more traditional bipartisan governing conversation could be possible,” he continued.
In 2019, Congress suspended the debt ceiling until August 1, 2021, as the nation reached its debt limit.
Photo courtesy: Harold Mendoza/Unsplash
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
