while hilarious, it's totally inaccurate.

Particularly since the debt limit is set by the government on the government. It isn't as though it is even one part of the government asking another for a limit increase, it is all internal to congress. They set the budget, they set the taxes, and they set the debt limit. It is 100% up to them what they want to do and they could simply not have a debt limit, as many other countries do.

Here's a much better video explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIbkoop4AYE

Plus, we owe most of that money to ourselves.

So it's not like going to a bank to raise your limit. It's more like, you've borrowed money from your retirement fund and your kid's college fund while times are hard and you'll pay it back when your economic situation improves. Because basically, when things are tough, everyone dips into their savings to pay their mortgage and utilities. If you don't, try to explain that to your mortgage company while they're foreclosing on your house.

And when times are good you continue to add more debt, just not as much, right? This video perfectly illustrates the situation. The only difference is this guy could one day not get a loan. The US might not be able to sell debt to other countries(or at too high an interest rate) but it can always print dollars. I think the responsible method should be to simply print the deficit yearly to spend it and if inflation increases, let people complain until the politicians stop printing money. The one thing usually not mentioned is the percentage of the budget spent paying interest on the debt, which keeps creeping up every year.

https://youtu.be/3ugDU2qNcyg

Moving this video to lurgee's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njp8bKpi-vg

If you just let the debt creep higher, you will eventually end up like Japan. 23% of revenue goes to interest payments, at historically low rates. Not a good position to be in.