Hi everybody and welcome to Open to Debate. I'm John Don Van. And it seems to happen

now every few years, doesn't it? Congress and the White House get into a game of chicken

over something called Drumroll, the Dead Sealing. Oh boy, that sounds exciting. But actually,

it does get exciting and not in a good way because if the two sides cannot reach an agreement

on government spending, then all of us just crash into a government that's running out

of money or it has run out of money. So we're going to debate this debt ceiling thing. But first,

we want to get clear on what it is we're talking about. So of course, the government needs money

to run. And of course, it gets that money from us. The taxpayer is year after year, but year after

year almost always, the money raised from taxes isn't enough to meet what the government wants

to spend. So the US borrows the rest of it. Now, legally, it cannot just keep borrowing endlessly

because Congress puts a ceiling to the amount of debt that the government can pile up,

ceiling debt, debt ceiling. But sometimes the government needs more than the debt ceiling allows.

So what has happened in the past is that Congress ultimately raises the debt ceiling. Sometimes,

it's been just in the nick of time, just before the oncoming financial and possibly social catastrophe.

Most critically, the thing that is dreaded but has never happened yet is that the US Treasury

would not have the money to pay the interest on the debt it already owes. It's a default.

The US government default would be a major unprecedented disaster for everybody and it would

lead to a recession. It would be felt globally. It would hurt the dollar. It would hurt all of those

people who have lent money to the US. Those are the stakes. So what about that debt ceiling and the

roll it plays? In this debate, the question we're asking is whether our debt ceiling as a thing

makes sense. We have two debaters answering opposite ways. Yes and no to this question should

Congress abolish the debt ceiling. So let's get into it and meet our debaters arguing that the

...