President Joe Biden on June 3 signed into law bipartisan legislation that suspends the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, just two days before the government was set to run out of money to pay all its bills, according toThe Wall Street Journal.
Three things to know:
1. The Fiscal Responsibility Act suspends the debt ceiling through Jan. 1, 2025 in exchange for cuts in unspecified domestic programs and a 3 percent cap on increases for military spending in 2024, according to the report. But programs such as Medicare and Social Security will be left alone.
2. The debt ceiling deal will recover $27.1 billion in unspent pandemic relief funding from several programs, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. Some of those programs are run by Medicare.
3. The agreement excludes Medicaid work requirements, which House Republicans incorporated into an April bill to raise the debt ceiling into next year. Those requirements would have resulted in about 600,000 people losing coverage and save the government $109 billion over 10 years, according to the CBO.