Irrelevant question to the article really. The thing about the debt limit is that it doesn’t actually limit how much congress tells the executive to spend. So C

Irrelevant question to the article really. The thing about the debt limit is that it doesn’t actually limit how much congress tells the executive to spend. So Congress on one hand says to the executive “you are only allowed to have this much debt” and on the other hand says “you must spend this much money on all of your programs, which will cause the treasury to surpass that debt limit”. Congress giving the executive contradictory demands is what causes the executive to have to look for work arounds to spend the money it is legally mandated to spend (every time the debt limit gets too close, the treasury has to start using increasingly complicated legislative gimmicks to keep the lights on while waiting for congress to get its ass in gear). So…irrespective of whether you think we should have less debt, the debt limit is a pointless exercise. If congress wants the government to spend less money, congress should decrease the budget and remove laws that require spending. The debt limit just forces the executive branch to choose which way it would prefer to disobey congress.