The drama of the week over the debt ceiling is another case of a failure of civics education leaving Americans vulnerable to disinformation about how that whole thing works.
Just to shout it into the void: based on the US system of independent branches, first Congress authorizes spending, then the executive spends it.
Congress does not spend money. Legislation does not spend money. The executive’s writing of checks and signing of contracts is what spends money.
There’s so much talk about money already having been spent that’s just wrong because they don’t realize how the US system works.
Most importantly here, though, the US has plenty of revenues incoming to service its debt. Default is not realistically on the table regardless of whether the debt ceiling is raised.
@volkris The "debt ceiling" is the stupidest manufactured crisis in US politics. It needs to be abolished, along with the Senate filibuster
The debt ceiling is merely the way we describe the idea that the US can’t take on longterm debt without general agreement of the population.
We shouldn’t be obligating future generations to paying off debts without agreement of the population in general, right? Presidents should not have unilateral authority to commit the country for decades to working to pay off a debt?
So the Constitution puts it to our elected representatives “To borrow Money on the credit of the United States”
That’s all the #debtceiling is, the amount of money our democratic process has agreed to borrow.
@volkris True. But Congressional authorization of the spending in the first place is what provides the authority to borrow. Presidents cannot authorize spending not approved by Congress.
The debt ceiling is merely an accounting mechanism, which we seem to have covered in endless conversations about debt level and deficit spending. The "debt ceiling" law is a political gimmick.
If Congressional authorization of spending provides authority to borrow then we wouldn’t be in this situation.
The reason the administration is going back to Congress for legislation to raise the debt ceiling is precisely because authorization to spend was not authority to borrow.
No, the debt ceiling is the limit of debt that has been authorized by law.
@volkris Civics has been intentionally and systematically removed from US schools over that past 30+ years. For exactly the reason that a population that doesn't understand even the basics of how their government works are easier to manipulate.