EXPLAINER: How ominous is the debt limit problem?

By JOSH BOAK
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has run up against its legal borrowing capacity of $31.381 trillion, an artificially imposed debt limit that has been increased scores of times. The Treasury Department on Thursday began implementing accounting workarounds called “extraordinary measures” to avoid a default. These workarounds shift money among accounts to keep the government open through at least June. President Joe Biden and Congress are supposed to use the time to work out an agreement to raise the debt limit. The debt limit talks often grow heated and go down to the wire. But there have been roughly 80 deals to raise or suspend the debt limit since the 1960s.