Top Democrats and Republicans signaled Tuesday they had clinched a deal to raise the country’s debt ceiling, settling on a complicated legislative maneuver to help them stave off another high-stakes battle and prevent the U.S. government from experiencing a catastrophic default. The apparent compromise arrived eight days before a critical fiscal deadline, averting what would have been another political and economic crisis.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., each expressed a measure of confidence that they had the votes to proceed with their plans, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., put the House on track to adopt the measure Tuesday evening.

The deal itself does not directly raise the debt ceiling but rather sets up a smoother process that allows Democrats in the narrowly divided Senate to accomplish the task without GOP support. The two sides had been at loggerheads over the issue for months, with Republicans refusing to lend their musthave votes to raise the borrowing cap, in protest of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.

Democrats decried Republicans’ stance, especially since the party provided the votes necessary to address the debt ceiling even when former President Donald Trump pursued policies they disliked. In the end, though, GOP lawmakers at least paved the way for Democrats to meet the fiscal deadline without risk of disruption or delay, potentially by raising the cap high enough to last through the 2022 midterms.

“We feel very good about where we are headed,” Schumer told reporters at a news conference, even as he acknowledged it is “not done until it’s done.”

The debt ceiling refers to the statutory limit under which the U.S. government can borrow money to pay its bills. Unless Congress raises it by a specific amount or suspends it outright, the Treasury Department would not be able to meet its financial obligations — and the country could experience a financial calamity, potentially even a new recession.

The U.S. government has nearly $29 trillion in outstanding debt subject to the limit. At the current rate, the Treasury Department says, the country has until Dec. 15 before it again is at risk of exceeding the cap. Absent a fix, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned Congress there are “scenarios in which Treasury would be left with insufficient remaining resources to continue to finance the operations of the U.S. government beyond this date.”

The U.S. has never defaulted, even though partisan battles repeatedly have pushed the country to the cliff — including a protracted stalemate that brought the Senate to the precipice of crisis earlier this fall. McConnell and his Republican allies sought to withhold their votes at the time on an increase to the debt ceiling as part of their campaign to oppose Biden’s broader economic agenda. But the GOP ultimately worked out a deal with Democrats, averting a fiscal catastrophe.

In the aftermath, McConnell swore that Republicans would not lend their support again. That raised the prospects of another clash in the Senate, since Democrats have only a tiebreaking, 51-vote majority in a chamber where they need 60 to take most action. Schumer, meanwhile, refused to invoke a special legislative maneuver to address the debt ceiling without the GOP, arguing that any solution should be bipartisan.

Under the emerging deal, though, the two sides appeared to secure a way out of that logjam that delivers them both a political win.