Analysis of the selected causes of the debt ceiling crisis in the United States

The aim of this thesis is to analyze selected causes of the current debt ceiling crisis in the United States, which culminated in 2011. The first part deals with the development of the debt ceiling in the U.S. and the historically important increases in the limit. Selected expenditure items of the U.S federal budget are analyzed for their creation of the high deficit and debt limit crises in the country, with focus on the costs of the health and social security systems. The second part analyzes the inefficiencies of these systems and the economic measures accepted from 2004 -2012 associated with the debt ceiling increases, which led to the analyzed crisis in 2011