Two words gang debt and limit from American public media.

This is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizal.

It is Monday today, the 17th of April.

Good as always to have you along.

Everybody, I am pretty sure that what I'm about to say is the first use.

The first use of the tortured kick the can down the road macro economic metaphor of the recent news cycle.

But here we are.

How Speaker Kevin McCarthy went to Wall Street day for a speech on the looming debt limit.

More accurately, it's the debt limit that Congress blew past in January.

We are now firmly in the land of extraordinary measures that have extended the deadline to June.

Or maybe July.

It's a little bit vague.

What's not vague at all is what a default would mean.

And one can't help but cast one's mind back to 2011.

The last time Congressional Republicans brought the United States personally close to defaulting on its debt.

The financial effects of which lasted four years.

Marketplace is Nancy Marshall-Genzer.

Gets his going on this Monday.

Twelve years ago, it seemed like defaulting on the U.S. debt might have actually been an option for some politicians.

Laura Blessing, a senior fellow at Georgetown University, says 2011 was a turning point for world markets.

As they have woken up to the very real danger of us, you know, kind of juggling with hand grenades on this one.

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