What is the debt ceiling?
The limit on how much the federal government can borrow to fund its operations was put in place in 1917 to give Congress flexibility in funding U.S. involvement in World War I. Since then, Congress has voted nearly 100 times to raise the limit each time it was reached. But the debt ceiling, now at $16 trillion, has become a symbol of runaway federal spending, and Republicans are refusing to raise it unless Congress cuts spending, too.
Are dollar bills being replaced by coins?
The U.S. Mint is looking to cut costs, and one proposal it offered was to replace paper dollars with $1 coins. The change would save $4.4 billion over 30 years. But there’s no indication that the public, or Congress, is willing to accept the coins. Over the past five years, the Mint produced 2.4 billion $1 coins, and most of them remain in storage with the Federal Reserve.
Did the pope cancel Christmas?
Pope Benedict XVI released a book called “Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives,” which questions the traditional Christmas portrayals of the nativity scene. The scene usually includes animals at the manger, but the pope said there’s no reference to animals in the Gospels. Moreover, he wrote, Jesus may have been born in a cave. News quickly spread that the pope opposed the nativity traditions, but the Vatican insists he didn’t cancel Christmas.
