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For the past two years, the federal government has been unfettered in its ability to borrow all the money it needed to pay the nation’s bills.
Congress temporarily suspended the debt ceiling as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, but the blank check is set to expire on July 31, leaving lawmakers to fight over how much to raise the borrowing limit, if at all.
Senate Republicans are threatening to vote against a debt ceiling increase and have called on Democrats to lift it unilaterally using a budgetary tactic called reconciliation, allowing certain legislation to pass with only a simple majority rather than the 60 votes needed for most other bills.