In broad strokes, the deal would suspend the debt limit until January 2025, freeze nondefense discretionary funding at current levels and make a few additional cuts and policy changes designed to appeal to enough Republicans and Democrats to get it through Congress. The deal also included incentives to motivate lawmakers to pass a budget on time in four months. That provision and the 2025 expiration date should mean the U.S. should avoid a self-inflicted fiscal crisis ' including an unprecedented default ' until at least after the next presidential election. No one got everything they wanted. President Joe Biden didn't get the clean debt ceiling increase he had insisted on for months. Republicans didn't get most of what they sought in a bill they passed in April ' though they did get some of it. As a professor of public policy and former deputy director at the Congressional Budget Office, I believe the deal, which still needs to pass both houses of Congress by June 5 to avoid a...
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