Ok, I am learning about the US debt ceiling and without raising, many important services we have today will be cut. Raising will increase our debt. My questions is debt to who? Who are we borrowing from? China? International bank?
Ok, I haven't paid much attention but I know it's important 
US national debt is composed of Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), Floating Rate Notes (FRNs), Domestic Series, Foreign Series, State and Local Government Series (SLGS), United States Savings Securities, and a portion of Government Account Series (GAS) securities.
As of 2022, China and Japan own the biggest share of our debt... 8% or nearly $2trillions of the foreign investment. Japan is the single foreign entity that hold the largest debt ($1.1trillions). China is lowering it's ownership, currently sitting at 800+ billions but they are still the second largest ownership. However, foreign investment account for only 34% of the debt. The rest are own by public investors, states, etc etc... What you'll find interesting is that gov't agency in the gov't itself own some of these debts (they are considered intragovernmen
tal debt). e.g. The Social Security Trust fund brings in lots of cash... so, they buy these US treasury notes and take on the debt. They in-turn sell these back to the gov't if they need the money to spend - paying out SS retirements to people, etc etc
Basically, the debt is gov't selling these IOU papers and printing money with the proceed from them to spend on their wasteful projects... Mostly giving them to foreign countries.
High debt will result in:
- more gov't money being allocated to pay off the interest rates... projected cost in 2023, the US will spend more to pay off interests then spend it on Medicaid or Social Security Programs. Interests cost the US $450billions+ in 2022 and is project to go over $1.4trillions by 2033.
- more debt means less money to invest in it's own future...
- Rising debt reduces business investment and slows economic growth. It also increases expectations of higher rates of inflation and erosion of confidence in the U.S. dollar.
- high amounts of debt leave policymakers with much less flexibility to deal with unexpected events. If we face another major recession like that of 2007–2009, it will be more difficult to work our way out.
