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<\/a>House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (AP Photo\/Susan Walsh)<\/p><\/div>\n
(CNSNews.com) – With the close of business today, the period in which Congress suspended any legal limit on the federal debt expires and as of tomorrow the limit on the federal debt will be set at whatever the level of debt happens to be.<\/p>\n
Since President Barack Obama signed the \u201cBipartisan Budget Act<\/a>\u201d on Nov. 2, 2015 there had been no legal limit on the amount of money the federal government could borrow until now. That law included a section entitled \u201cTemporary Extension of Public Debt Limit.\u201d It said that the law imposing a limit on the federal debt \u201cshall not apply for the period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act and ending on March 15, 2017.\u201d<\/p>\n As of Nov. 2, 2015, the federal debt subject to the legal limit stood at $18,452,108,000,000. As of the close of business on Tuesday, the latest day reported, it stood at $19,865,505,000,000.<\/p>\n That means the federal debt increased by $1,414,397,000,000 during the approximately 16 and a half months that Congress removed any legal limit on it.<\/p>\n \u201cCongress has modified the debt limit 14 times since 2001,\u201d the Congressional Research Service reported in October 2015<\/a>\u2014a month before Congress modified the debt limit for a 15th time since 2001 by including the language in the Bipartisan Budget Act suspending it.<\/p>\n By suspending the debt limit from Nov. 2, 2015 through March 15, 2017, Congress and President Obama gave the Treasury the authority to borrow an unlimited amount of money from Nov. 2, 2015 until after the 2016 election.<\/p>\n On Oct. 3, 2008, President George W. Bush signed \u201cThe Emergency Economic Stabilization Act<\/a>,\u201d creating the Troubled Asset Relief Program that authorized the Treasury Secretary to purchase up to $700 billion in assets from troubled financial institutions. That law also increased the debt limit from $10,615,000,000,000 to $11,315,000,000,000.<\/p>\n That was the last debt limit increase before the 2008 presidential election.<\/p>\n Since then, borrowing by the federal government has increased the federal debt subject to the legal limit to the current $19,865,505,000,000\u2014which exceeds the October 2008 limit by $8,550,505,000,000.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n