“My understanding is that only lasts until Feb 8th.”
That’s true. But, at least as I read it, the debt ceiling is suspended until Feb. 8, and then on Feb. 8, it is automatically increased to the level of borrowing at that point in time. So (to use round numbers), assume the current debt is 18T, and between now and Feb. 8, the feds issue $2T of additional bonds - then, on Feb. 8, once the suspension of the debt limit is over, the limit would automatically increase to $20T.
My concern is this - what if, between now and Feb. 2, Treasury issued an additional $10T of bonds - far more than Treasury would spend in that period. So, come Feb. 8, Treasury would have no more authority to issue new debt, BUT it would have 8-10T cash on hand, so it would not need to issue any new debt (which would effectively eliminate the debt ceiling as a practical matter). Obviously there would be logistical issues (I doubt Treasury could issue that much in that short a time period - someone has to buy the bonds, after all). But, there doesn’t seem to be anything in this law that would stop Obama from doing this.
Simple: the Fed could create as much money as it wished and purchase an unlimited face value of Treasury bonds from the U.S. Treasury. This could be priced at prevailing rates and transacted in an afternoon. It seems to be a distinct possibility.