Congress averted a catastrophic debt default early Wednesday morning after Democratic majorities in both chambers voted to send a $2.5 trillion increase in the nation�s borrowing authority to President Joe Biden over lockstep Republican opposition.

Capping a marathon day, the House gave final approval to the legislation early Wednesday morning on a near-party-line 221-209 vote, defusing a volatile issue until after the 2022 midterm elections. The action came just hours shy of a deadline set by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who warned last month that she was running out of maneuvering room to avoid the nation�s first-ever default.

�The full faith and credit of the United States should never be questioned,� Speaker Nancy Pelosi said from the House floor shortly before the vote.

Yet the bill � which drew only one Republican vote in the House, from Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger � also saddled vulnerable Democrats with a tough vote on the cusp of an election year when both chambers will be up for grabs.

Republicans, meanwhile, said they were perplexed by the Democrats� scramble to act.

�Democrats have known this day is coming for two years and did absolutely nothing,� said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.

Despite a seemingly straightforward name, the nation�s debt limit does little to curtail future debt. Established in 1917, it instead serves as a brake on spending decisions already endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike � in some cases decades ago � that if left unpaid could cripple markets, send the economy into a tailspin and shake global confidence in the U.S.

That hasn�t stopped Republican saber-rattling. For months, they�ve used the debt limit to attack�Democrats� big-spending social and environmental agenda�while pledging to staunchly oppose the current effort to increase the threshold. As recently as October, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not �be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement.�

Yet McConnell softened his opposition, striking a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last week that created a workaround that allowed Senate Democrats to approve legislation with a simple majority while avoiding a Republican filibuster.

�This is about paying debt accumulated by both parties,� Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday while hailing the agreement.

McConnell�s backtracking angered some in his party. But it also gave him much of what he wanted: Democrats taking a politically difficult vote without Republican support, while increasing the limit by a staggering dollar figure that is sure to appear in future attack ads.

�If they jam through another taxing and spending spree this massive debt increase will just be the beginning,� the Kentucky Republican said Tuesday.

The decision didn�t sit well with Donald Trump.

The former president has railed against the deal repeatedly, calling McConnell a �Broken Old Crow� who �didn�t have the guts to play the Debt Ceiling card, which would have given the Republicans a complete victory on virtually everything.�

�GET RID OF MITCH!� Trump said in a statement issued Sunday.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah also criticized the intricate process Schumer and McConnell agreed to, which he warned could be used in the future to �launder� potentially unpopular votes.

Under the agreement, an amendment was made to an unrelated Medicare bill that passed last week with Republican votes. It created a one-time, fast-track process for raising the debt limit that allowed Democrats to do so with a simple majority, bypassing the 60-vote threshold to avoid a GOP filibuster.

Lee said the process was intended to make the Republican votes last week �appear as something other than helping Democrats raise the debt ceiling,� which he said Republican leadership �committed, in writing no less, not to do.�

Yet Republican arguments against debt limit increases often ignore inconvenient facts.

The nation�s current debt load of $28.9 trillion has been racking up for decades. Major drivers include popular spending programs, like Social Security and Medicare, interest on the debt and recent COVID-19 relief packages. But taxation is also a major factor, and a series of tax cuts enacted by Republican presidents in recent decades has added to it, too.

That includes $7.8 trillion heaped onto the pile during Trump�s four-year presidency, an analysis of Treasury records shows. The�GOP-championed 2017 tax cut�is projected to add between $1 trillion and $2 trillion to the debt, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

(AP News)