United States Senateunder Democratic control, Thursday approved the deal reached between the White House and Republicans raising the debt ceilingpreventing the country from going into suspension of payments.

With 63 votes to 36 against, the bill passed the final legislative hurdle before landing in the Oval Office for President Joe Biden to sign.

The bill was approved by the Senate a day after the House of Representatives, held by the Republicans, approved it and four days after the deadline set by the Treasury Department for the US to default on its national debt.

“The United States can breathe easy because with this process we avoid default,” Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, said shortly before the vote.

With these words, Schumer announced an agreement with a group of wayward Republican senators who had recently threatened to extend the process. if the Democrats did not commit to ensuring that the defense budget could be increased more than contemplated in the agreement itself.

After his speech, he began a long process of amendments which, however, failed to prevent the project from being ratified, as it had been approved by the House of Representatives the day before.

The measure suspends the debt ceiling for the next two years, until after the November 2024 presidential election. Specifically, it suspends the current $31.4 trillion debt limit until January 1, 2025.

In return, the deal reached over the weekend between the White House and Republicans in the House of Commons includes caps on spending on congressional-funded programs in areas such as health, education, justice or environmental protection.

Under that pact, non-defense spending will remain flat in fiscal year 2024 and increase by 1% in fiscal year 2025.

Likewise, it is tightening job requirements to access Social Security benefits, such as food stamps, and withdrawing $28,000 million unspent dollars allocated to relief programs against the pandemic.

At the same time, it is scrapping some of the new funds earmarked for the treasury to reallocate to non-defense posts, and is considering resuming university student payments of accumulated debt.

At the same time, it reduces part of the new resources allocated to the treasury to reallocate them to non-defense items and considers resuming college student payments of the debt they’ve accrued.

The debate in the Senate started around 2:30 pm (6:30 pm GMT) this Thursday.

Shortly thereafter, U.S. President Joe Biden, back at the White House after attending an Air Force graduation ceremony in Colorado where he fell spectacularly, received a call from former President Barack Obama asking the former president about the vote in the Congress, the government said.

Before the debate, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stated that the House would remain in session until this bill was passed and warned that any “unnecessary delay” would be “an unnecessary and even dangerous risk”.

The agreement’s approval in both chambers of Congress was crucial so that the country would not default on its national debt after reaching the debt ceiling last January, the legal limit on the money the US can borrow to meet its fulfill obligations.