Senate passes debt ceiling bill, sends to Biden

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed a House-approved bill late Thursday to raise the debt ceiling and cap government spending for two years, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk .

He is expected to sign it Friday, just three days before the U.S. risked its first-ever sovereign debt default.

“No one gets everything they want in a negotiation, but make no mistake: This bipartisan agreement is a big win for our economy and the American people,” Biden said in a statement after the vote.

The compromise debt ceiling bill passed the Senate by a 63-36 margin, enough support from Democrats and Republicans to overcome the chamber’s 60-vote threshold to avoid a filibuster.

The vote was the final chapter in a remarkable day of deal making and rapid-fire voting in the Senate, a body that typically requires days, not hours, to deliberate over and amend House bills.

On Thursday night, the chamber voted down 11 proposed amendments to the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed by the House, before ultimately voting to pass the bill itself.

The driving force behind the turbo votes was simple: The Treasury Department’s June 5 deadline for raising or suspending the debt ceiling was just four days away.

Secretary Janet Yellen has said she believed the government will most likely be unable to meet its debt obligation after Monday, unless Congress votes to raise the debt limit.

Following the Senate vote, Yellen praised the bill, saying it “protects the full faith and credit of the United States and preserves our financial leadership, which is critical to our economic growth and stability.”

The bill that passed Thursday was the result of a compromise deal negotiated by delegates for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Biden. It handed conservatives several ideological policy victories in exchange for their votes to raise the debt ceiling beyond next year’s presidential election and into 2025.

The bill moved through the House in less than 72 hours, and passed Wednesday night with a resounding majority, 314-117. The vote breakdown surprised House leadership on both sides: In the end, more House Democrats voted for the bill than Republicans.

In the Senate, the final vote was similarly bipartisan, but it was not an easy lift.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spent much of the day Thursday hammering out an agreement with a group of Senate Republicans who demanded that he pledge to support a supplemental defense funding bill before they would agree to fast-track the debt ceiling bill.

The current House debt ceiling bill provided $886 billion in defense spending for fiscal year 2024, an increase of 3% year over year. That figure increased to $895 billion in 2025, an increase of 1%.

But GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine called this “woefully inadequate” Thursday, arguing that a 1% increase did not keep pace with inflation, so in practical terms, it was actually a decrease in military funding. The solution came in the form of a rare joint statement from Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., which was read on the floor.

“This debt ceiling deal does nothing to limit the Senate’s ability to appropriate emergency supplemental funds to ensure our military capabilities are sufficient to deter China, Russia and our other adversaries and respond to ongoing and growing national security threats,” Schumer read. “Nor does this debt ceiling limit the Senate’s ability to appropriate emergency supplemental funds and respond to various national issues, such as disaster relief, combating the fentanyl crisis or other issues of national importance,” said Schumer.

The message was unmistakable: Regardless of what the bill said, the Senate would continue to spend money above and beyond that to fund what its members believed was important.

With the debt ceiling crisis averted, Congress now turns its eyes to a summer of appropriations, haggling over how to spend their capped sums of money next year.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.