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Comment by sampa | Hacker News Reader

who would've thought!

Indeed. There may be merit in a debt ceiling, and careful consideration in increasing it, but this regularly-scheduled crisis is sheer fnord farce.

There isn't though, at all.

How much debt the US will take on is decided when the Federal budget is authorised. That's when it happens.

The only thing the debt ceiling does is have the US arbitrarily go into default on treasury bills.

There is absolutely no merit to a debt ceiling. If you want to curb spending you do that when you set the budget. You don't do it when the bill comes. Can you imagine trying to get out of your mortgage payment because you said you wouldn't spend more than $500 this month? The bank would laugh at you and foreclose.

One argument for the debt ceiling is budgets, when passed, contain many unknowns. That said, a sensible debt ceiling would be closer to a government shutdown; discretionary spending is halted while non-discretionary payments continue.

What budget’s unknowns does a dept ceiling fixes ? Take this budget line:

Education: 1M$

Here « education » may have unknowns but the ceiling is supposed to apply to the second par : « 1M$ ». I can’t see what may be unclear in this number.

> one argument

Mind sharing others ? I’d would be (sincerely) happy to understand why US needs this while the rest of the world does not.

> What budget’s unknowns does a dept ceiling fixes ?

A trillion dollars plus in student loan pauses and cancellations and starters. Also, for the recently passed IRA we now have “the uncapped tax credits will cost three times what Democrats claimed”.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-reduction-act-subsidi...

Then pass a new bill to adjust the budget. We shouldn't skip out on our bills. It makes no sense. I'll say it again. There is no merit to having a debt ceiling. Further, it's unconstitutional.

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