The highs and lows of US debt ceilings
Political football
The debt limit was routinely raised without incident until 1953. That year, approval was held up in the Senate in an attempt to restrain President Dwight Eisenhower, who had requested an increase to enable construction of the national highway system. The limit has since been raised dozens of times, usually without a fight. But the past quarter century has seen the debt ceiling increasingly become a partisan weapon.