In 1917, Congress first created what is commonly known today as “the debt limit.” The Second Liberty Bond Act authorized the secretary of the Treasury “to borrow, from time to time, on the credit of the United States” a sum “not exceeding in the aggregate $7,538,945,460.”

Today, many, many debt limit hikes later, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is authorized to borrow up to an amount 2,000 times that sum; $16,394,000,000,000, to be exact. But apparently, even that isn’t enough. Geithner informed Congress on New Year’s Eve that unless they raised the debt limit again, he would be unable to pay all of the federal government’s bills.