A full two hours after a midnight deadline, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a deal Tuesday to avert the feared fiscal cliff on an 89-8 vote.

The Senate approved a scaled-down package early Tuesday morning aimed at halting historic tax hikes for most Americans and postponing across-the-board spending cuts, just hours after Congress missed a midnight deadline for action.

Three hours shy of the midnight deadline, the White House and congressional leaders reached a deal to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, several sources confirmed to The Huffington Post.

Legislation to negate a fiscal cliff of across-the-board tax increases and sweeping spending cuts to the Pentagon and other government agencies is headed to the GOP-dominated House after bipartisan, middle-of-the-night approval in the Senate capped a New Year's Eve drama unlike any other in the annals of Congress.

The Senate, in a pre-dawn vote two hours after the deadline passed to avert automatic tax increases, overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday that would allow tax rates to rise only on affluent Americans while temporarily suspending sweeping, across-the-board spending cuts.

Congress lost a mad, New Years Eve dash to beat the fiscal cliff deadline, cinching a deal with President Barack Obama to raise taxes on the wealthy and temporarily freeze deep spending cuts but failing to get it through both chambers before midnight.

President Barack Obama and Senate leaders Monday reached a New Year's budget agreement that would let income-tax rates rise for the first time in nearly 20 years, maintain unemployment benefits for millions of people and blunt the impact of spending cuts that were looming as part of the so-called fiscal cliff.

Congress careened over the edge of the fiscal cliff at midnight, but a solution was in the offing after the Senate voted early Tuesday to approve a deal that combined tax-rate hikes and new stimulus spending, along with a two-month delay of automatic spending cuts.

Here's a summary of the fiscal cliff deal.

The Senate approved a bipartisan agreement early Tuesday morning to let income taxes rise sharply for the first time in two decades, fulfilling President Obamas promise to raise taxes on the rich and avoiding the worst effects of the “fiscal cliff.