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Rising government debt levels have seemingly always been in the headlines. In recent years, U.S. debt levels have become political, with one side of the aisle often refusing to raise the debt limit...
The debt ceiling is the limit placed by Congress on the amount of debt the government can accrue. In order to pay its bills to those it borrowed from and dole out money for everything from ...
The government needs to borrow money to continue paying out what Congress has already approved, but the debt ceiling puts a limit on how much money the U.S. government can borrow to pay its bills.
Government debt is typically measured as the gross debt of the general government sector that is in the form of liabilities that are debt instruments. [2]: 207 A debt instrument is a financial claim that requires payment of interest and/or principal by the debtor to the creditor in the future.
The 2011 S&P downgrade was the first time the US federal government was given a rating below AAA. S&P had announced a negative outlook on the AAA rating in April 2011. The downgrade to AA+ occurred four days after the 112th United States Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling of the federal government by means of the Budget Control Act of 2011 on August 2, 2011.
The debt ceiling had technically been reached on December 31, 2012, when the Treasury Department commenced "extraordinary measures" to enable the continued financing of the government. [3] [4] The debt ceiling is part of a law (Title 31 of the United States Code, section 3101) created by Congress.
Because the government spends more money than it collects in tax revenue, lawmakers need to periodically tackle the issue -- a politically difficult task, as many are reluctant to vote for more debt.
Total US federal government debt breached the $30 trillion mark for the first time in history in February 2022. [9] As of December 2023, total federal debt was $33.1 trillion; $26.5 trillion held by the public and $12.1 trillion in intragovernmental debt. [10]