The US Senate approves a temporary increase in the debt ceiling... Is the problem of default over?

The US Senate on Thursday approved legislation to temporarily increase the federal government's debt ceiling, avoiding the risk of a historic default later this month, but postponed a decision on a longer-term solution until early December.

The public debt ceiling is the legal limit on public debt in the United States.

The House voted 50 to 48 in favor of the bill, following a weeks-long struggle between the Democratic and Republican parties.

The legislation increases the current debt ceiling - amounting to 28.4 trillion dollars - by 480 billion dollars, an amount that is expected to run out by next December 3, the same day that funding for most federal programs ends under a measure to fill the gap approved this month after A confrontation between the two parties as well.

This means that a deeply divided Congress will have to face the two challenges of finding a compromise on spending through September 2022, and also avoid a new crisis over the debt ceiling.

The council's vote came after a months-long standoff with the approach of the October 18 date, by which the Treasury had expected that it would not be able to meet its obligations.

The bill passed by the Senate is then referred to the House of Representatives, and is expected to be approved.

It was not clear how quickly the House of Representatives moved in this regard.

And US President Joe Biden threatened earlier this week to exceed the US public debt ceiling if an agreement was not reached with Congress on increasing the public debt ceiling or extending the suspension of the debt ceiling, blaming the leader of the Republican bloc in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, for an action he said. "Meteor" is heading towards the American economy.

Biden said - at the time - that more than a quarter of the American debt - amounting to 8 trillion dollars - came during the four years of the rule of former Republican President Donald Trump, so Republicans should help raise the debt ceiling.

And US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned last week that her department will effectively fail by October 18 if Congress does not act and pass a law to continue to suspend the public debt ceiling or raise the ceiling.