The debt ceiling is the limit on how much money the government can borrow. In order to fund itself, the government borrows money, creating debt. We’ve gotten to the point where we can’t fund the government without going over the debt ceiling (this actually happens quite a lot). But if we go over the debt limit, the government basically goes into ultra austerity mode. This is bad, so politicians just keep voting to raise the debt ceiling all the time and kick the can down the road. The problem is that now republicans are refusing to to raise it (again).

Heres comes in the coin. The treasury technically has the power to mint new platinum coins without the approval of Congress. The treasury could mint a trillion dollar coin, hand it directly to the federal reserve, and the government can pay off the next year without technically going over the debt ceiling. In theory, this wouldn’t raise inflation because the government is only paying off existing debt that it already factored into the budget, not creating new debt.

Yes, our economy is this stupid.