This bit of happy news comes from the Wall Street Journal (subscriber link):
Adopted 53-42, the revised $9.815 trillion ceiling is intended to give the Treasury enough borrowing authority to manage through the end of Mr. Bush’s presidency and into 2009.
It represents an almost $4 trillion increase from the statutory debt limit when Mr. Bush took office in 2001, and Democrats used the occasion to decry the administration’s fiscal policies even as their leaders felt compelled to back passage.
Am I the only person who thinks that perhaps the feds could learn a lesson or two from the banking world on the perils of overextending credit when borrowers’ long-term ability to pay may be questionable?