President Joe Biden on Thursday signed a bill to temporarily raise the debt limit of the United States until early December. The measure has delayed the prospect of an unprecedented federal default, for now.

The $480 billion increase in the country’s borrowing ceiling got the nod of the House of Representatives on Tuesday. The Senate had cleared the bill last week. The bill had caused a protracted standoff of the Democrats with Senate Republicans.

Ultimately, the bill did go through but Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the GOP will offer no support for another increase in December.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had warned that the US would hit its borrowing limit on Monday, an unprecedented situation that she and others cautioned could lead to economic catastrophe for a nation still reeling from a global pandemic. Routine government payments to Social Security beneficiaries, disabled veterans, and active-duty military personnel would potentially be delayed, and the economic fallout in the US could cause a ripple effect in the global markets.

The passage of the short-term debt ceiling increase ensures that, for now, that will not happen. But it is just a stopgap and sets up another potential cliff at the end of the year — at a time when lawmakers will also be working to pass a federal funding bill to avert a government shutdown.

Republicans want the Democrats to use a budgetary maneuver to pass an increase in the debt limit without Republican support, like the process Democrats are using for Biden’s massive climate change and social safety net plan. But Democrats have resisted that option. The clash between the two parties leaves Congress without a clear solution to avert the next default deadline in December, but the White House has emphasized it is still pursuing a bipartisan increase, the Associated Press reported.

Lawmakers from both parties have used the debt ceiling votes as leverage for other priorities. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatened to vote against raising the debt ceiling when President Donald Trump was in office, saying she had no intention of supporting lifting the debt ceiling to enable Republicans to give another tax break to the rich. And Republicans in 2011 managed to coerce President Barack Obama into accepting about $2 trillion in deficit cuts as a condition for increasing the debt limit — though lawmakers later rolled back some of those cuts.

(With AP inputs)