The deal to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling until January 2025 holds non-defense discretionary spending largely flat this year, with a 1% increase in fiscal 2024. SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE OFF LIMITSIn their debt limit negotiations, both President Joe Biden and House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed not to touch the main driver of U.S. debt: rising Social Security pension and Medicare health benefit costs. Debt-ceiling negotiations spared cuts to mandatory spending like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security even though these programs cost more than discretionary spending. CBO projects the government will spend $6 trillion on mandatory spending programs in the 2033 fiscal year, up from $4.1 trillion this year. But the plan failed when then-president Barack Obama declined to endorse it, setting up Congress for the debt ceiling battle of 2011.

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Persons: Joe Biden, Kevin McCarthy, Julia Nikhinson, Dennis Ippolito, you've, Nigel Chalk, Biden, Brian Riedl, Linda Bilmes, Bowles, Barack Obama, Bilmes, David Lawder, Andy Sullivan, Heather Timmons, Nick Zieminski Organizations: White, REUTERS, WASHINGTON, Republicans, Defense, Southern Methodist University, Congressional Budget Office, Security, Social Security, CBO, International Monetary Fund, Reuters, Democratic, Western Hemisphere Department, IMF, Manhattan Institute, Harvard Kennedy School, Commerce Department, Simpson, Thomson Locations: United States, Washington , U.S, U.S, Washington