US President Joe Biden signed into law Thursday a bill to lift the nation's borrowing authority, averting the threat of a first-ever debt default -- but only for a few weeks.

On Tuesday, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted along party lines to pass the stop-gap $480 billion hike, which advanced from the Senate last Thursday after weeks of heated debate.

Without this increase in the debt limit, the Treasury warned that the federal government would be incapable of securing and servicing loans after October 18. This would have reverberated around the world as an economic catastrophe.

This increase in the debt ceiling "is expected to be sufficient to allow the Federal Government to continue to meet its full commitments through early December," the White House said in a one-sentence statement while announcing that Biden signed the bill.

President Joe Biden signed into law a bill to lift the nation's borrowing authority, averting the threat of a first-ever debt default -- but only for a few weeksremoves his face mask as he arrives to speak in the South Court Auditorium on the White Hous
President Joe Biden signed into law a bill to lift the nation's borrowing authority, averting the threat of a first-ever debt default -- but only for a few weeksremoves his face mask as he arrives to speak in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus October 14, 2021 in Washington, DC. GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Drew Angerer

The new arrangement merely kicks the can down the road, possibly to complicate another major funding deadline -- a shutdown that would begin from December 3 when the government's coffers theoretically run out.

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