On August 2, 2019, President Trump signed into law the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, section 301 of which suspends the statutory debt ceiling until July 31, 2021. This is the most recent in a series of such suspensions, each of which have permitted the Treasury to incur unlimited amounts of debt during the suspension period. Effectively, each suspension temporarily repeals the debt ceiling.

The Default Clock is designed to focus the minds of federal and state policymakers on both proposing and executing a plan for taking the government off its current path to default. A committee of recognized budget and debt policy experts regularly analyzes the default indicators and reports its findings to the public through the Default Clock.