> The actual thing that the debt ceiling does is stop the Treasury from issuing debt to pay for things Congress has already decided to pay for. It's bonkers. G

> The actual thing that the debt ceiling does is stop the Treasury from issuing debt to pay for things Congress has already decided to pay for. It's bonkers. Great summary. That's why, if there's going to be something like a debt ceiling, it has to be part of the budget process, not a separate part of the debt-repayment process. You don't boycott paying your credit card bill. You stop putting more purchases on it. Granted, the one step follows the other. But Congress is manifestly unable to backpropagate consequences by one step. So if we're going to have a guardrail, it has to be in the right place. Yet somehow this middle way is never considered. Instead it's just "debt bad" or "debt ceiling bad". People always with the dumb binaries and false dichotomies.