(AP) — The Senate was poised Tuesday to lift the nation’s debt limit by $2.5 trillion under a deal struck between party leaders, defusing a volatile issue until after next year’s midterm elections while saddling majority Democrats with a tough vote.

The vote would come just one day before a deadline set by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who warned last month that she was running out of maneuvering room to avoid the nation’s first-ever default. The bill is expected to clear the Senate on a party-line vote that garners no Republican support, with House passage anticipated as early as Tuesday night, which would send the measure to President Joe Biden’s desk.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hailed the agreement, which will allow Democrats to pass the bill without the threat of a Republican-led filibuster.

“This is about paying debt accumulated by both parties, so I’m pleased Republicans and Democrats came together,” the New York Democrat said on the chamber’s floor Tuesday.

Despite a seemingly straightforward name, the nation’s debt limit does little to curtail future debt. Instead, the 1917 law serves as a brake on spending decisions already approved by Congress and the White House — some decades ago — that if left unpaid could cripple markets, send the economy into a tailspin and shake global confidence in the U.S.

That hasn’t stopped Republican sabre rattling about the issue. For months, they’ve used the debt limit to attack Democrats’ big-spending social and environmental agenda while pledging to staunchly oppose the current effort to increase the threshold. As recently as October Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not “be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement.”

In striking a deal, McConnell backtracked on his past words. But he also got much of what he wanted: Democrats taking a politically difficult vote without Republican support, while increasing the limit by a staggering dollar figure that is sure to appear in future attack ads.

“If they jam through another taxing and spending spree this massive debt increase will just be the beginning,” the Kentucky Republican said Tuesday.
McConnell’s decision has also proven unpopular with some Republicans, particularly with Donald Trump.

The former president has railed against the deal repeatedly, calling McConnell a “Broken Old Crow” who “didn’t have the guts to play the Debt Ceiling card, which would have given the Republicans a complete victory on virtually everything.”

“GET RID OF MITCH!” Trump said in a statement issued Sunday.

Yet Republican arguments against debt limit increases often ignore inconvenient facts.

The nation’s current debt load of $28.9 trillion has been racking up for decades. Major drivers include popular spending programs, like Social Security and Medicare, interest on the debt and recent COVID-19 relief packages. But taxation is also a major factor, and a series of tax cuts enacted by Republican presidents in recent decades has added to it, too.

The national debt includes $7.8 trillion heaped onto the pile during Trump’s four-year presidency, an analysis of Treasury records shows. The GOP-championed 2017 tax cut is projected to add between $1 trillion and $2 trillion to the debt, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.