Hey everyone. I'm Jonathan Kapart and welcome to K-Bup.

I'm not much of a policy wonk except when it comes to the debt ceiling and the dangers of not raising it.

That's why I've asked Shai A Cabis, Director of Economic Policy at the Bi-Polic Center,

to come on this week's episode to explain it, what it is, what it isn't, and what might happen if it, the legal limit on federal borrowing isn't raised.

I know about all of this because of Shai, and you'll get to learn all about it from him in plain English right now.

Shai Kavis, thank you very much for being on the podcast.

Absolutely, great to be with you, Joe.

Okay, so we got to get something out of the... on the podcast. Absolutely. Great to be with you, Joe.

Okay, so we got to get something out of the way right now.

A lot of people when they talk about the debt ceiling, they think that it also means government

shutdown and they're not the same so what is the difference

between a government shutdown and the in the debt ceiling crisis that people are

talking about for September.

Yeah, you're absolutely right and this time around it's actually even worse because

they're happening at roughly the same time.

So it's actually adding to the confusion.

The government shutdown is something that's happened periodically over the

years there was a very famous one back in the 1990s when the Republicans in Congress

and Bill Clinton were in budget battles with one another it's really a

partial government shutdown.

And it means that the portion of the budget

that Congress appropriates each and every year,

...