President Biden signed the debt ceiling bill with just two days remaining before the federal government would have gone into default.
The White House announced the signing of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, or H.R. 3746, via a statement on Saturday.
In addition to lifting the debt limit into 2025, the announcement noted some of the main highlights of the bill and how it would impact Americans.
The act “suspends the public debt limit through January 1, 2025, and increases the limit on January 2, 2025, to accommodate the obligations issued during the suspension period; establishes new discretionary spending limits, appropriates funding for the VA Toxic Exposures Fund, and rescinds certain unobligated balances; expands work requirements for certain Federal programs; modifies environmental review processes; and terminates the suspension of Federal student loan payments,” according to the statement.
The highlighting of work requirements notes a key issue important to Republican negotiators. House Speaker McCarthy has had to deflect criticism from his right flank that believes he conceded too much during negotiations.
Biden appeared on television on Friday night for a 10-minute address to the public that was also conciliatory to his counterpart.
“I want to commend Speaker McCarthy. He and I, and our teams, were able to get along, get things done. We were straightforward with one another, completely honest with one another, respectful with one another. Both sides operated in good faith. Both sides kept their word,” Biden said, reported Politico.
“No one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed. We averted an economic crisis and an economic collapse.”
Texas Rep. Chip Roy was a leading voice of dissent on the right, objecting to the debt deal. He said that the bill would be used to “accelerate the implementation of the historic clean energy and environmental justice investments in the Inflation Reduction Act [of 2022] — the very policies destroying the American way of life and making them unable to afford energy and afford their food.”
Left-wing and progressive Democrats like Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Greg Casar (D-TX), and Jesús “Chuy” García (D-IL) all opposed the bill because of the restrictions it would allegedly place on taxpayer-funded welfare programs and what they perceived as too many concessions to Republican demands.
Some observers saw the raising of the debt ceiling as a foregone conclusion. The markets barely reacted on the first day after the signing, with a flat Dow and the S&P only slightly higher.
With this crisis averted, Biden did not have to resort to the much more legally precarious use of the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally.
