Philip Bump: “The debt limit doesn’t do what a lot of people assume. It’s not a limit on spending but on paying for the spending that’s already been approved. The theory behind many debt-ceiling fights is that by capping the amount of debt that can be accrued, you’ll constrain spending by working backward.”
“But that’s not how it works in practice, as you can see below. Instead, Congress spends money at a deficit and the debt keeps growing higher to give it breathing room. The debt ceiling doesn’t affect the debt; the debt affects the debt ceiling.”
