Debt Ceiling Bill Passes Senate, Biden Will Sign

 

The latest chapter of "governing by crisis" is over:

The Senate passed a bipartisan bill late Thursday to suspend the debt ceiling and curb federal spending, sending the legislation to President Biden to sign into law in time to avert an unprecedented U.S. government default.

The deal cleared the House on Wednesday night and is now on track to take effect by Monday, when the government would no longer be able to pay all of its bills without borrowing more money. Senators scrambled to vote before the weekend, even as a handful of frustrated lawmakers pushed for votes on amendments that risked slowing the process. [snip]

The Senate passed a bipartisan bill late Thursday to suspend the debt ceiling and curb federal spending, sending the legislation to President Biden to sign into law in time to avert an unprecedented U.S. government default.

The deal cleared the House on Wednesday night and is now on track to take effect by Monday, when the government would no longer be able to pay all of its bills without borrowing more money. Senators scrambled to vote before the weekend, even as a handful of frustrated lawmakers pushed for votes on amendments that risked slowing the process...

(We'll stop right there.  Nowhere in the article do the reporters "report" on the reason there was a crisis to begin with.  There's no mention of Republicans holding the debt ceiling hostage to make budget cuts they could have negotiated during the normal budget cycle.  None.  Rather, the issue is framed through the media's "partisan bickering" lens, with the warm and fuzzy glow of "bipartisanship" as the ultimate goal.  This, in a paper using "Democracy dies in darkness" in its masthead, is just a continuation of the epic failure of the corporate media to hold Republicans to account for their dangerous, potentially catastrophic behavior time after time.  Yet another example of the media covering itself in democracy- eroding ignominy.)

The bill passed 63-36.  If you're interested in how your Senator voted, go here.

Getting this done, given the makeup of the Republican (mad) House and the evenly divided Senate, was a victory for President Biden in the obvious sense that a default would have had catastrophic consequences to the economy -- on his watch.  It also had the side benefit of neutering the "Freedom Caucus" and driving a wedge through Republican politics (remember the Malignant Loser wanted Republicans to vote against the bill).  

Let's hope no more lessons need to be learned about Republican nihilism going forward, and that something is done to take this "hostage" out of play after 2025.