KOSIK: Ok. Let me go do a little debt ceiling 101. The debt ceiling is the borrowing limit. Congress goes to the Treasury and says you have this much money to borrow meaning you have this much money to pay your bills out of. It's not new money that the government is looking to spend. It's actually paying the bills that we've already committed to. Ok. So what's happened today?</s>KAYE: Today we reached the debt ceiling - $18.1 trillion. Now congress has to either raise the debt ceiling or do something else. What's going to happen in the interim? The treasury right now is taking what's known as extraordinary measures so it's doing some creative accounting making sure the U.S. Doesn't default on its obligation. This really turns into quite the political football. We were just talking about what happened in 2011 where we saw the U.S. Credit rating being downgraded. We saw the financial markets go crazy and that's why really we should care about this because politicians wind up waiting until the last minute to take care of this.</s>KAYE: Right.</s>KOSIK: And in this instance, the predictions are we should really start to worry around October and November. That's when kind of the curious line is going to start to come to pass because politicians most likely will wait until the last minute to raise that debt ceiling and that's what the big worry is. The big worry is if it roils the financial market, you'll feel it in your 401(k).</s>KAYE: Yes, that's everybody's worry right there -- right? Alright, Alison. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Still to come, ever want to broadcast your life in realtime to the world? Stay here and learn about one of the hottest new apps today. It's called Meerkat.
U.S. Reaches $18 Trillion Debt