President Joe Biden signed a bill into law on Saturday to avoid a default on the federal government’s debt by raising the debt ceiling.

The bill, known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act, will suspend the debt limit until January 2025 and implement restraints on spending that the Congressional Budget Office estimated would reduce budget deficits by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. 

“I just signed into law a bipartisan budget agreement that prevents a first-ever default while reducing the deficit, safeguarding Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and fulfilling our [sacred] obligation to our veterans,” Biden said on Twitter. “Now, we continue the work of building the strongest economy in the world.”

I just signed into law a bipartisan budget agreement that prevents a first-ever default while reducing the deficit, safeguarding Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and fulfilling our scared obligation to our veterans.
 
Now, we continue the work of building the strongest… pic.twitter.com/42HIFBy8Y9

— President Biden (@POTUS) June 3, 2023

The bill was hashed out through a deal between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Biden. It passed both the House and the Senate with more Democrat votes in favor than Republican, with some conservative lawmakers saying that it didn’t cut down on spending enough. 

In the House, 149 Republicans joined 165 Democrats in voting for the bill, while in the Senate 17 Republicans joined 46 Democrats in supporting the measure. 

The bill was supported by leadership in both parties, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and McCarthy in the House. 

“We prevented a catastrophic default that would have decimated our economy and [inflicted] immense pain on families,” Schumer tweeted. “We preserved the lion’s share of the historic investments we made. We took off the table the worst parts of the MAGA Republican plan that would have hurt families.”

The bill was strongly opposed by many Republican senators, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). 

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“I think the Biden-McCarthy debt deal is a disaster for the country. It does not significantly change the trajectory of the debt. Each year we’ll spend more money and the debt will grow $4 trillion in two years. It’s not very conservative,” Paul told reporters this week.

In the House, the bill was opposed by many in the House Freedom Caucus, who took issue with many aspects of the deal, including the provision that punts the debt ceiling into 2025. 

McCarthy declared the deal a win for conservatives. “Maybe it doesn’t do everything for everyone, but this is a step in the right direction that no one thought that we would be able to today,” McCarthy said. “I’ll debate this bill with anybody. Is it everything I wanted? No, because we don’t control all of it. But it is the biggest rescission in history. It is the biggest cut Congress has ever voted for in that process.”

A cigar that was once smoked by Winston Churchill is set to be auctioned alongside a handwritten note and the jar it was once stored in. 

Churchill, the British prime minister who led the United Kingdom through most of World War II, gave the cigar as a memento in August 1944 to Hugh Stonehewer-Bird, the consul general in Rabat, Morocco. 

“It’s amazing what turns up in glass jars. This is an iconic piece of memorabilia connected to one of Britain’s most famous prime ministers and the Second World War,” said Charles Hanson, the owner of the auction house selling the unique item. “Churchill was renowned for his love of cigars and occasionally gave them as gifts to people who had helped him in any way.”

The cigar has been kept in the possession of the Stonehewer-Bird family for over 75 years and will be sold at an auction house in Derbyshire. The guide price is expected to be between $750 to $1120. 

“The original handwritten label provides the provenance collectors like,” Hanson said. “We hope this item will excel under the hammer.”

Churchill, one of Britain’s most honored political figures, was frequently photographed with cigars, and it was estimated that he went through between eight to 10 cigars every day. He once defended his smoking habit after the king of Saudi Arabia informed him that he would not be allowed to drink or smoke around him.

“As I was the host at the luncheon I raised the matter at once, and said to the interpreter that if it was the religion of His Majesty to deprive himself of smoking and alcohol I must point out that my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them,” he wrote in his memoirs. 

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Cigars by the famed prime minister have done well at auctions before, with one selling for over $26,000 in March. That record-breaking cigar was one that Churchill had given to Chequers Trust auditor Leonard Herbert Norman in 1953. 

“The cigar box was circulated for the second time. I didn’t feel equal to smoking another,” he wrote in his memoirs. ‘But I did take one and hastily put it unseen (I think) into an inner pocket and still have it today.”

Last year, a box of Churchill’s cigars sold for nearly $20,000. The cigars, from Cuba, were labeled with his name and given to him by a New York businessman.