The Constitution requires Congress to place restrictions on federal debt, but the setting of a statutory limit isn’t required by the Constitution. The first version of the debt ceiling was established in 1917, under the Second Liberty Bond Act. It set an aggregate limit on the amount of new bonds that could be issued. In 1939, Congress set an overall cap on almost all federal debt, and it has been regularly approving higher caps ever since.
Since 1960, according to the Treasury Department, the debt ceiling has been raised 78 times – 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democrats.
