Things I don't understand about the debt ceiling

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. Payments come due all the time, and there are hundres of thousands, perhaps several milion distnct

payments. This is not a bill for a mortgage, but the different bills for all the countries regular business.

The government borrows money using bonds, with an agreed upon date for those bonds to mature. You are not a nation of 300 million people. Comparing your finances to the countries is like comparing a camp fire to a black hole They are not the same thing. You have probably been listening to too many republicans that like to compare the national budget and national debt to what people do around the kitchen table. It is one of the big lies republicans use to confuse people.

The ceiling is not involved in borrowing any money or in paying any debts. It has similarities to the limit on a credit card. You can borrow all the money at once by charging something big, or charge a thousands small items. Until something is budgeted and allowed by congress, nothing is spent. So think of the debt ceiling as the limit on a national credit card.

Again, the debt ceiling is not escrow. It has no money in it. It is just the equivalent of the limit on a national credit card. That is a shaky analogy, but close enough to make sense, I think.

By the way, as far as I can find, we are the only country in the world that has a debt ceiling law.