The history of the debt ceiling President Barack Obama makes a
statement about progress with congressional leadership regarding
the ongoing debt ceiling talks on July 29, 2011 in Washington,
DC. We got the debt limit, or the debt ceiling, in 1917. Before
then, Congress had to give its approval every time the Treasury
Department issued a bond. Julian Zelzer, who teaches U.S.
history at Princeton, says that, during the run-up to World War
I, lawmakers recognized this wasn't very inefficient. "Congress
decided to create this debt ceiling to give more flexibility and
efficiency to the federal government to handle a growing debt,"
he says. Congress sets the debt limit -- the amount of money the
government can borrow to pay what it owes. Sarah Binder, who
teaches political science at George Washington University, says
lawmakers realized, early on, that gave them a lot of power.
"This was a tool for trying to get Congress and the president to
agree to other things," she says. When President Eisenhower
tried to raise