The 2011 debt ceiling fiasco Every year, after a bunch of squabbling, the two parties attempt to agree on a budget for the next fiscal year. If the budget involves spending more money than the U.S. will make in revenue during that period, the result is a deficit—something that has become commonplace for the U.S. Let’s say in a given cycle, the deficit is X dollars. That means that the agreed-upon budget will entail the U.S. borrowing X at some point during the cycle in order to fully fund the obligations dictated by the budget. This will raise the cumulative national debt, and the way the
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