On this episode of News World, on Thursday, January 19th, the U.S. Treasury Department announced

the United States has reached its debt limit, and they would begin a series of accounting

measures to keep the United States from reaching its borrowing cap. Treasury Secretary

Janet Yellen sent a letter to Congressional leadership about the debt limit saying,

quote, dear Mr. Speaker, I write to keep you apprised of actions the Treasury Department

is taking in regard to the debt limit. In my letter of January 13th, 2023, I noted that

public law 117-73 increased the statutory debt limit to a level of $31.381 trillion,

and informed you that beginning on January 19th, the outstanding debt of the United States was

projected to reach the statutory limit. This letter serves to notify you, pursuant to five UIC

83-4812 of the extraordinary measures Treasury began using today. She concludes by saying, quote,

I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.

So as we approach the debt ceiling debate, I felt strongly it's important to know the history

of our national debt, how we got to $31.3 trillion of national debts today, and what we should be

doing about it. So I'm really pleased to welcome back my guest, Thomas Honeck. He is the former

Vice-Chammer of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, former President and CEO of the Federal

Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He was with the Federal Reserve for 38 years. He is currently a

distinguished senior fellow at the McCatus Center at George Mason University. Tom, welcome back,

and thank you for joining me again on Newt's World. Well, Newt, thank you for having me.

That's good to be back. An interesting topic. As I say, you know so much more about this than I do,

that I'm really grateful because I think all of our listeners will find this to be a very

informative and educational conversation. So could you start with sort of a history of the national debt?

Well, it's pretty straightforward. The Congress allocates spending, the executive branch

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