Mounting burden

The debt limit — also known as the debt ceiling — is not in the US Constitution or in any of its 27 Amendments. It is just a statute, a law, enacted as part of legislation allowing the government to issue bonds to finance US participation in World War I in 1917.

The total debt accumulated by the US government has been growing with each budget deficit since the 1700s. The current limit, set in 2021, is $31.4 trillion.

The initial limit was a few billion dollars, but not enough. So Congress raised it. Congress raised it again. And again. In 1939, anticipating US entry into World War II, Congress restructured the debt and raising the limit became more or less routine.

Since 1960, the limit has been lifted 78 times. Democrats have been in the White House for 30 of those years and worked with Congress to get 29 of those increases. Republican presidents have done it 49 times. For most of that time, raising or suspending the limit was just the last stitch in the federal budget and spending process.

The limit and the debt neared the trillion-dollar level for the first time late in the 1970s. Ronald Reagan made that a major campaign issue in 1980, but while he was in office the limit was raised more than a dozen times and reached $2.8 trillion.

In 1990, under president George H.W.Bush, the limit was set at more than $4 trillion, making the 1980s the decade with the biggest percentage increase in debt and the debt limit.

Under Bill Clinton, the limit went to about $6 trillion (1997) and under George W. Bush to roughly $11 trillion (2008). The last time a new limit was set under president Barack Obama it was $18 trillion (2015) and the last time under president Donald Trump it was $22 trillion (March 2019). During the pandemic, Congress suspended the limit so as to spend without even minimal restraint. The debt rose to more than $27 trillion. The current limit was set in 2021.