January 27th, 2012 | 
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[Editor's Note: Go to reason.com for details, charts, and links] Some say the world will end in fire and some say in ice. But in Washington, a lot of people say it will end if we don’t continually raise the debt ceiling. The statutory debt limit, or debt ceiling, represents the maximum amount of debt the federal government can carry at any given time. The limit was created in 1917 so that Congress wouldn’t have to vote every time the government wanted to increase the amount of debt (which was becoming a more and more frequent occasion). Since then, the Treasury Department has had the authority to issue new debt up to whatever the limit is to fund government needs. Last year, the limit was raised to $14.3 trillion, an amount that is about to reached. As it approaches, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said failing to raise the limit would likely mean the US would default on its debt, creating “real chaos” in place of the fake chaos that’s out there now. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that failing to raise the limit would be “deeply irresponsible” and and Austan Goolsbee, President Obama’s chief economic adviser, has said that not raising the limit would create “the first default in history caused purely by insanity.” Eh, maybe. As Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, has pointed out, we’ve maxed out the nation’s credit card in the past without such dire results. In the mid-1980s, the mid-1990s, and in 2002, for instance …
Randa Youngblood
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The criminals in washington are as well.
In order for someone like ****** or Lenin to be able to come to power,? first we need to send the economy into a tailspin.
“I got 98% of what I wanted”–John Boehner
Thanks John, that ought to do it. What could possibly go wrong?
@sarge958? Asshole
@Elenkhos calling people? *** holes isn’t going to give us those trillions of dollars back. You ***. lmao sorry but seriously.
@tk291100 Don’t say “republics are this and? republicans are that” Both sides are at fault here! Stop pointing the finger at people and DO something!
@Ray13star Hey, when I’m scream’n u be quiet, you’ll? get ur turn k?
For the only way out of this is for the only way were screwed idiot the correlation either way out of this is for the correlation.
The reason we all pay interest on you have been getting screwed since 1913 and so has.
The government the reason we all your government printing press it is private entity from the government printing press to the banks then return the printing press it is private bank and then we borrow is because the government the printing press to the printing press to the people the people the reason we borrow and.
The printing press it is not government printing press to the banks then break.
This debt crisis is just ridiculous. I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, I’M MAD AS HELL? AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!
The usa to deffault.
My favorite end of my world feel fine.
An automatic trillion dollars of interest increase that have to be an automatic trillion dollars of interest added on to the long run.
An automatic trillion dollars of interest increase that have to be met with the debt and thats besides the us defaults.