The United States is bumping up against the debt ceiling once again. The Treasury department has begun taking extraordinary measures to ensure it can continue to service its debts on time. Secretary Yellen has said these measures should be sufficient until June. Some project they might work until August.

Many pundits act as if there is no good reason to have a debt ceiling. They say Congress implicitly approves an increase in debt when it passes revenue and spending bills. They think requiring Congress to explicitly raise the limit on issuing debt is unnecessary and—since it increases the odds of default—unnecessarily risky. Some go so far as to describe it as lunacy.

David Beckworth discussed the debt ceiling with Michael Strain on a recent episode of Macro Musings. Strain, who is the Director of Economic Policy Studies and the Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, provides a clear statement of the view described above