Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Congress approved an $800 billion increase in the nation's $7.384 trillion debt limit, the third increase in the government's borrowing limit since President George W. Bush came to office.

The 208-204 vote in the House of Representatives sends the measure to Bush for his signature. The Senate yesterday also approved raising the debt limit to $8.184 trillion. Without a higher limit, the U.S. government lacks authority to issue payments owed to investors in government securities or to beneficiaries of Social Security and other programs.

``If you don't vote for it, you're putting the government in harm's way,'' Representative Tom Reynolds, a New York Republican, said during debate on the House floor today.

The government last month reached a limit set by Congress on the Treasury's ability to borrow, forcing Treasury officials to shuffle money among government pension funds, cancel sales of state and local government securities and postpone an auction of four-week bills.

Today, the Treasury said it would delay announcing how many two-year notes and other government securities it plans to sell next week as it waits for enactment of a higher limit.

The U.S. government's last fiscal year ended Sept. 30 with a record $412 billion budget deficit. Reynolds and other Republicans pointed to increased defense and homeland security spending related to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Iraq war as the cause of the debt.

Democrats said Bush doesn't have a plan to erase the debt and that his $1.85 trillion in tax cuts are to blame. The U.S. saw four consecutive years of surpluses from 1998 to 2001 and has had deficits every year since then.

`More Debt'

``Don't get us involved in any more debt unless you have some kind of a cockamamie plan to get us out of the debt you put us in,'' said Representative Charles Rangel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. He and other Democrats said the deficit can be erased only if Congress offsets all future tax cuts with tax increases or spending cuts, an approach Bush opposes.

Congress voted in June 2002 and again in May 2003 to boost the debt limit. Today's action brings to $2.2 trillion the total amount of debt ceiling increases during Bush's first term in office.

The debt limit will be reached again in 18 months to 24 months, said Drew Matus, senior economist at Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York.

The debt limit was about $6 trillion when Bush came to office, and the administration initially estimated that ceiling wouldn't be reached until 2008.

The debt ceiling covers about $3.5 trillion in publicly traded Treasury securities, plus savings bonds and borrowing from the Social Security trust funds and government pension funds. Congress imposed the first debt ceiling of $11.5 billion in 1917. It crossed the $1 trillion mark in 1981.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 18, 2004 23:22 EST