Congress Approves Debt Ceiling Increase In Timely Vote

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congress was able to approve raising the government’s debt limit by 2.5-trillion dollars, averting an unprecedented default. However, raising the debt limit received resistance from some congressional members.

In a late night, last minute vote, Congress agreed to increase our debt limit by 2.5-trillion dollars.

“The resolution we will vote on will provide raising the debt to a level commensurate with funding necessary to get us into 2023,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D- NY).

The vote happened with little time to spare. The Treasury Department warned members the U.S. would be unable to pay our bills if Congress didn’t act on this by December 15th and if they failed to do so, it would’ve triggered a catastrophic financial crisis.

With this increase, Congress has set the new debt limit number to 31.4- trillion dollars.

Senator Pat Toomey (R- PA) voted against this increase. We spoke with him before this vote and he said members need to start taking steps on how we can reduce our overall debt.

“The frustrating thing for me is we have accumulated too much debt,” said Toomey. “The federal government has got way too much borrowing, our outstanding borrowings are more than our entire economy by a lot and it’s continuing to get worse.”

Congressman Glenn Thompson (R-PA) also voted against the increase. He said increasing the limit will hurt future generations.

We also spoke with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D- NY) before the vote. She was confident Congress would pass this before the deadline.

“The full faith and credit of the united states should never be in doubt,” said Gillibrand.