Federal Officials Explain How Debt Ceiling Issue Affects Californians

Washington is under a deadline to work out a deal on raising the debt ceiling.

What happens at the federal level, will have a local effect.

"I hope it gets fixed really soon." says Ian Mccallum, a local Coachella Valley resident.

For the past few weeks, lawmakers have been negotiating, and even bickering, over the looming debt ceiling deadline, but many wonder, what does this really mean?

"So the debt ceiling is the maximum limit for the federal debt, so this is an artificial borrowing limit imposed by congress in 1962, and I’m saying that it’s artificial because the US government is the issuer of the currency and can’t run out of money." says Gigi Moreno, the Senior Economist for the Southern California Association of Governments.

Most of the money accumulated to create the debt ceiling is taxpayer money, affecting everyone, especially here in California.

"Not only as I said earlier, not only are Social Security recipients and veterans not going to receive their payments in a timely way, so that’s going to affect them, small businesses aren’t going to be able to get their SBA loans. Doctors may not get paid for Medicare, but also public employees can potentially be furloughed." Moreno says.

With greater concerns for the financial market, if the U.S. defaults on its obligations.

"It also creates uncertainty and instability in financial markets, which then damages investor confidence, which could further impact the economy for years to come. A shock to financial markets can further put people’s livelihoods and jobs at risk."

Overall Moreno says, we need to learn from this issue.

"I think what we’re learning or what we should recognize is that that having too large of a federal debt is a concern for people and congress need to pay attention to that, but deal with that through taxation and through our spending policy and not through the debt ceiling which has severe implications for financial markets and for the functioning of our economy."

The Southern California Association of Governments says there are ways to prepare for this, and it comes down to educating tax-payers on what the debt ceiling really is and what is isn’t.