Explaining US Debt Ceiling to a 5 year old
Imagine you have a piggy bank where you save your money. Every time you want to buy something, you take money out of your piggy bank. Now, let’s say you have a rule that you can only spend a certain amount of money and you can’t borrow any more money from anyone else.
The debt ceiling in the United States is like that rule for the government. It’s a limit on how much money the government can borrow to pay for things like schools, roads, and hospitals. The government gets money from people who pay taxes, but sometimes they need more money than they have in taxes to pay for everything they want to do.
So, when the government reaches its debt ceiling, it means they have reached the maximum amount of money they are allowed to borrow. It’s like when you reach the maximum limit of money you can take out of your piggy bank. They can’t borrow any more money to pay for things they need, and that can cause a lot of problems.
If the government can’t borrow more money, they might not be able to pay the people who work for the government, like teachers and firefighters…
