House Votes To Raise Ceiling For U.S. Debt
WASHINGTON -- The House passed a bill to raise the federal borrowing limit and set a $23 billion deficit-reduction goal for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.</br></br>The legislation, approved on a 230-176 vote and sent to the Senate, would raise the federal debt ceiling to $2.8 trillion from the current $2.35 trillion limit, which is scheduled to expire today. The Senate is expected to approve the measure.</br></br>The higher debt ceiling would give the government enough borrowing authority to operate until May 1989, and thus would remove the contentious debt-ceiling issue from the realm of electoral politics next year.</br></br>The bill also would reinvigorate the Gramm-Rudman deficit-cutting law and set easier targets than the original statute. A strengthened Gramm-Rudman was a precondition to approval of the long-term extension of the debt ceiling. Many lawmakers insisted that a narrowing of the projected budget deficit be guaranteed before they voted to let the government borrow more money and increase the national debt.</br></br>Under the new Gramm-Rudman proposal, if Congress and President Reagan don't agree on a package of proposals that shrinks the projected fiscal 1988 deficit by $23 billion, an across-the-board spending cut would be automatically imposed to reach the target.