October 12, 2021

The House approved a bill on Tuesday to briefly alleviate the squeeze of the debt limit, warding off an economically destructive default for just over seven weeks.

President Joe Biden is expected to sign the legislation in short order, allowing the Treasury Department to keep paying loans for the nation’s more than $28 trillion in debt. The extra borrowing power is estimated to last until about Dec. 3, the same day government funding will expire. That patch is far shorter than the 14-month fix Democrats had to abandon after Senate Republicans repeatedly sunk the majority party's long-range plan for lifting the cap on the nation’s credit.

“Nobody has clean hands when it comes to the debt limit,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said before the vote, after months of partisan sniping over who’s responsible for racking up the government’s bills.

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