Congress signs off on debt-ceiling increase

last updated 8 January 2015

The House of Representatives and the Senate approved a one-year extension of the government’s borrowing authority this week with no strings attached, after Republican leaders backed away from another potentially damaging battle over the debt limit. In a narrow, 221–201 vote, 28 House Republicans joined all but two Democrats to suspend the debt ceiling for more than a year, marking a retreat from GOP House Speaker John Boehner’s long-standing principle of attempting to offset any increase in the debt ceiling with spending cuts of an equal size. The bill, which President Obama was expected to sign soon, eliminates any chance of a default on the government’s $17.2 trillion debt until March 2015.