Is The U.S. Debt Ceiling Really A Debt Target?

At this point, the national debt limit should really be called the national debt target. Congress seems to have no problem hitting the multi-trillion-dollar figure on a regular basis. Last year, the debt target was raised $1.2 trillion to its current level. Congress has placed “restrictions” on federal debt since the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917, but has raised the debt target more than 70 times since.

Congress has voted to raise the bullseye 11 times since 2002, as seen in the table above from Congressional Research Service. The total public debt continues to climb the charts at an increasing pace…