Issuing "greenback" paper currency backed by the government's credit instead of gold was seen as a radical move in 1862, but Lincoln and Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase recognized the paramount importance of safeguarding the nation's credit and did it anyway.
Is the debt ceiling, which has been raised 78 times since being established by Congress during World War I, a useful periodic reminder of fiscal restraint or an outdated relic that has become a weapon for partisan extortionists? Kathleen Day discusses the ceiling with NPR's Scott Simon.
Law professor Rohan Grey discusses the history of the debt ceiling law and why minting a giant denomination coin might be the least stupid option should Congress refuse to raise the ceiling.
The provisions of the Reconstruction Amendments dealing with the national debt were tied to the nation's short-lived commitment to interracial democracy in the South; today they offer the Biden administration a possible tool to use if Congress pushes to the brink of default.
Debt held by the public is on track to exceed the size of the entire U.S. economy this year for the first time since World War II, according to a new analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).
Until liberals understand that supply-side tax cuts are a political strategy dressed as an economic theory, they will be doomed to repeat their technically accurate but utterly irrelevant arguments.
