Obama signs debt ceiling package

August 2, 2011 2:11 PM ET.

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama has signed legislation to increase the nation’s borrowing authority and avert a potentially catastrophic government default.

Obama signed the bill privately in the Oval Office little more than an hour after the Senate voted final passage. It capped months of contentious and partisan debate. The compromise bill paired an increase in the debt ceiling with promises of more than $2 trillion of budget cuts over the next decade.