WASHINGTON : Senate leaders announced an agreement Thursday to extend the government’s borrowing authority into December, temporarily averting an unprecedented federal default that experts say would have devastated the economy.
“Our hope is to get this done as soon as today,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer declared as he opened the Senate.
In their agreement, Republican and Democratic leaders edged back from a perilous standoff over lifting the nation’s borrowing cap, with Democratic senators accepting an offer from Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell.
McConnell made the offer a day earlier just before Republicans were prepared to block longer-term legislation to suspend the debt limit and as President Joe Biden and business leaders ramped up their concerns that a default would disrupt government payments to millions of people and throw the nation into recession.
