The debt limit is a kind of financial weapon of mass destruction chained to the United States government by the United States government.

Confused, then it's time for, the United States debt limit explained.

To understand the debt limit, you need to know the U.S. splits financial responsibility between the President and Congress.

The President has two jobs when it comes to money.

One, collect taxes, and two, spend those taxes to run the government.

This might give you the impression that the president, with regards to money, is all-powerful,

especially when you hear news reports on the president's new budget or his plan to raise taxes

on haberdasher's or lower taxes on apiarists. But reality is just the opposite, and the president

is the one who takes orders, from whom Congress.

Congress has the jobs of setting the tax level and determining how much the government will spend by writing a budget.

So while the President does get to submit budgets to Congress and asks for changes in the tax level,

these are just requests that Congress doesn't have to pay attention to.

Congress can add or subtract anything they want from the President's budget or throw it out entirely and write a new one.

The same goes for the level of taxes.

So Congress decides what it wants, bridges tanks, buildings courts, robots on Mars, robots on Earth,

national parks, whatever, and approves a budget with that stuff in it.

Once approved, the President is required by law to spend

the money Congress listed in the budget and pay for it using the taxes that Congress set.

As long as more taxes come in than spending goes out, everything is fine, but almost always

Congress puts more stuff in the budget than they cover with taxes, which means that the

president must borrow money to

cover the difference. In most countries, the story ends here because if their legislatures approve

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