US debt-limit bill heads to Senate before deadline
August 03, 2011 00:00:00
WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Agencies): The US Senate is to vote on a bill to raise the nation's debt limit, one day after the House of Representatives backed it and hours before a deadline.
Monday's vote in the House appears to have averted the prospect of the first full-scale US federal debt default.
Members of the 100-seat Senate will vote at midday (16:00 GMT) Tuesday. If approved it will be signed into law by President Barack Obama.
The deal ties a $2.4tn (£1.5tn) debt increase to spending cuts.
The Senate vote will take place barely 12 hours before Washington is due - according to the US treasury department - to cease to be able to meet all its bills.
The bill has the backing of Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate and is thought likely to win the support of the 60 senators it needs to pass.
In the House on Monday evening the bill passed by a clear margin of 269 votes to 161.
Despite ongoing reservations about how the bill would fare with conservative members of the House, the bill won the backing of 175 Republicans, with 66 voting against.
Democrats were more evenly split - 95 for and 95 against.
US President Barack Obama will address reporters Tuesday at the White House, minutes after an expected noon vote by the Senate on an austerity bill aimed at reining in soaring debt.
"This afternoon, the president will deliver a statement to the press in the Rose Garden" at 12:15 pm (1615 GMT)," the White House said in a statement.
After eight months of an often angry stand-off, the Democratic-led Senate was expected to support the emergency measure in a noon (1600 GMT) vote -- a mere 12 hours before a midnight deadline by which the world's richest nation would run out of cash to pay its bills.
"It is imperative that the United States not default on the nation's obligations, that the full faith and credit of the United States be preserved, and that the nation's fiscal house be put in order," the White House urged.
In a moment of high drama -- a rare show of unity in the ideologically torn Congress -- Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords drew applause and cheers from her assembled colleagues as she made a triumphant first return since being shot in the head in a January rampage in her home state of Arizona.
