US Senate passes budget deal to avert default

The US Senate passed a bipartisan, two-year budget deal on Friday that boosts federal spending by $80 billion, reduces a government shutdown threat and raises the debt ceiling through the end of Barack Obama’s presidency.

The bill passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday and now goes to Obama for the formalities of his signature, although the political fallout looks set to linger on.

The measure, which passed 64 votes to 35 late into the night, provides lawmakers with some fiscal breathing room through the 2016 presidential election after years of bruising spending fights. The plan suspends the statutory federal borrowing cap until mid-March 2017 and averts a damaging default.

It provides for a $50 billion spending increase in fiscal 2016 -- split about equally between defense and domestic programs –and $30 billion in fiscal 2017.

It also adds $31 billion into an emergency war fund for the Pentagon, offset by tweaks to entitlement programs including Social Security.

The deal is the result of weeks of secret negotiations between the White House and Republican then-speaker John Boehner, who sought to clear the decks of any fiscal crises before his successor took 

the gavel.