It was 1917 when the United States had just joined World War I. With demands for military investment growing, the US Treasury Department was in desperate need of money. Without enough of its own, the Treasury Department had to borrow it from someone, but was also constitutionally required to receive congressional approval to take on debt and make financial decisions. Rather than oversee every increasingly common request and transaction, Congress figured, “Hey, let’s give the Treasury Department power to oversee their own debt! But we have to limit that so we don’t get ourselves in any trouble.”
Thus the debt ceiling was born. It was a means to allow the Treasury Department to get money, accrue debt, and invest in everything the government needed to invest in without requiring constant approval from Congress, while still allowing Congress to control the total amount of debt accrued.
