For his many proposals such as those he has posed for social justice, the Biden Administration began trying to raise the debt ceiling in October to gain money. The debt ceiling is a system for limiting the amount of debt the United States can hold and that “ceiling” must be moved or be temporarily nulled to increase the amount of debt the government holds.

“Always and forever, we should try to eliminate debt collection,” Bailey Warlick (9) said.

The Biden administration wants to push past the current debt limit of $28 trillion to pay for new programs and proposals like eliminating student debt and police reform that were introduced during and after his presidential campaign. The United States debt ceiling controls how much money the federal government has access to while the rest goes toward attempting to pay back other countries and the upkeep of the economy.

“The national debt level of the United States is a measurement of how much the government owes its creditors,” Griffin Bilke (11) said.

This contesting of the debt limit has become not only a generalization and divisive subject, but it has caused a surge in the exploration of different ways to take care of America’s debt.

“We need to stop spending money we don’t have and put people back to work instead of giving government handouts,” Jose Mancera (11) said.

The raising of the debt ceiling was first brought up in early October when the Biden administration tried to gain the funds needed to institute their proposed programs such as reducing student debt to zero and transitioning into a more affordable healthcare situation for all Americans on the road to universal healthcare. The original proposal was shot down by most of Congress which led Biden to respond, criticizing them for allowing the Trump administration trillions of dollars compared to his minimal funding.

“They are spending money we do not have and expect the people to pay absurd taxes,” Jose Mancera (11) said.

In most Congressional matters it only requires a majority of the Senate vote to pass legislature, but this particular matter requires a unanimous vote that some Senate members have been vocal in denying. Trying to get around this, the Biden administration decided to get it passed through the House for a temporary lift to assemble the funds they need.

“The battle revealed that the debt ceiling has become less of a way to hold public spending,” Bilke said.

The key to this current debt discussion being so controversial and politically charged started when Biden accused Congress of bias for Trump as they let him raise the ceiling by trillions of dollars. Then many officials as well as other media sources responded either with comments about the proposals that Biden is trying to finance or drawing party lines around the situation. This has also introduced a conversation of the limits of power the government has over the economy, what they can introduce into it, and ways to reduce the debt.

“I want a trillion dollar coin,” Riley Courtney (11) said. “That would be pretty cool.”

The major idea to reduce the debt is the possibility of the U.S. Treasury minting a trillion dollar coin. Minting this coin and introducing it into the economy would either cause a recession, or it would increase the economy by introducing a large amount of money for it to feed off of.

“Printing or making more money isn’t going to solve any of our problems at all,” Warlick said “It will just make our dollar bill value worth less”

The major question other than how to reduce the debt is how the extension of the ceiling will affect the economy. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that lifting the debt ceiling would slow the economy months before the Biden administration tried to lift it. She also warned that her department may face a debt default if funding cannot be found by Dec. 3rd, meaning that they would not be able to pay the amounts of money owed to different sources on time.

“I believe it is extremely important and should be handled correctly in the soon to near future,” Aidan Hernandez (10).

The reason that debt default is so warned against is because a default would cause a temporary government shutdown, like there was from Dec. 28th, 2018 to Jan. 25th, 2019 under the Trump administration where the federal government looks for funding wherever they can get it. A government shutdown would not only contradict the entire point of the debt ceiling raise, but it would also make Biden’s bid for a raise even harder to push through, no matter how many trillion dollar coins he has the treasury print.