Just about every year, like clockwork, the issue of raising the federal debt ceiling generates apocalyptic and platitude-filled proclamations of impending doom from politicians, as well as breathless coverage by the mainstream press. Then, in the blink of an eye, lawmakers inevitably raise the debt ceiling and the issue disappears down the national memory hole as the news cycle moves on. Rest assured, the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling would be catastrophic, and with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warning Congress that the federal government will run out of cash and extraordinary measures by Oct. 18, the clock is ticking. So why is this issue even up for debate? Why do we need to have an apocalyptic partisan showdown almost every year over raising the debt ceiling, a procedure that used to be entirely mundane and uncontroversial?

In this interview for the TRNN podcast, Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and political scientist Ed Burmila try to answer three basic questions for listeners: What the hell is the debt ceiling? Why is it a constant source of political anxiety? And should we care about it? Ed Burmila is a writer and political analyst whose work has appeared in outlets like The Nation, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, The Baffler, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He’s been publishing the popular blog ginandtacos.com since 2003, he hosts a companion podcast called Mass for Shut-Ins, and he is currently finishing a book that will be published in September 2022 with Bold Type Books on why the Democratic Party is stuck in a cycle of making the same mistakes.

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