Senators reach a debt deal to end the shutdown and extend borrowing

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced a bipartisan deal on Wednesday to raise the debt limit through Feb. 7 and end the 16-day-old government shutdown.

The bill must be passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and signed by the president, and it is unclear whether all that can happen before the Treasury Department exhausts its borrowing power Thursday.

Bipartisan deal avoids major concessions to GOP, delays spending debate until winter.

It avoids any major concessions on Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, a major victory for Democrats and a repudiation to House and Senate Republicans who for weeks tried to use the threat of a shutdown and potential default to force changes in the health-care law.

Passage of the bill would mean that the federal government can reopen, and hundreds of thousands of federal employees can return to work. It also means that the Treasury can continue to borrow money in order to pay the government’s bills.

But the bill’s timeline sets up another potentially bitter showdown over spending cuts and entitlement programs that will unfold in the halls of Congress over the next four months.

“This legislation ends a standoff that ground the work of Washington to a halt,” Reid said, urging his colleagues to focus on reconciliation rather than blame. “What we’ve done is send a message to Americans … and in addition to that, to the citizens of every country in the world, that the United States lives up to its obligations.”

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