What Is The Debt Ceiling? | January 7, 2025

[Music] hello hello hello welcome to CNN 10 your quick 10 minutes of news where I simply tell you the what letting you decide what to think I'm KY wire remember to submit your vocabulary words for the first hashy word Wednesday of 2025 put your unique word and definition in the comment section on my most recent post at kwire on social we're going to choose a winner to work into tomorrow's show with a shout out so put your school city state name in there as well all right let's fuel our minds your News starts now we

start first in New Orleans where US President Joe Biden and First Lady Joe Biden traveled on Monday the bidens visited with some families of the 14 people who were killed last week during the New Year's Day terror attack the bidens attended an Interfaith visual with local clergy law enforcement and community members New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell and Louisiana governor Jeff Landry also met with the president to discuss security efforts in the city in times of national tragedies like this one Americans often look to the president for reassurance and in modern times the president has publicly

taken on the role of consoler in Chief it's a role President Biden has become known for shaping much of his political identity around empathy and his lifetime struggles with loss other presidents too have led the nation after difficult events like when Ronald Reagan consult Americans after the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986 just after launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral now to a major fiscal deadline looming over the US Government after the nation's debt ceiling was reinstated at the very beginning of this year reminder the debt ceiling is the limit on the

amount of money the US federal government can borrow to pay its bills and those bills will be coming due pretty soon around mid January when the US hits the debt limit it can't borrow anymore that's when the treasury Department will have to start taking Extraordinary Measures to prevent a default and those funds can last a few months this has ramped up tensions between GOP lawmakers and president-elect Donald Trump who is demanding Congress deals with the limit before he takes office on January 20th CNN's Vanessa yavich breaks down the details of the debt limit showing us

why it's become such a politically charged topic I think president uh Trump and I are in agreement that I don't even know why we continue to have the debt limit drama the permanent repeal of the debt ceiling what do you mean limit yes you mean just say we don't have a debt limit no debt li no I'd be responsible ah the debt ceiling the Eternal Washington food fight so what is it and why is it so contentious the debt ceiling is the legal limit set by Congress on how much money America can borrow because the

US spends more than it takes in it borrows to make up the difference the debt ceiling caps how much the problem is it's not enough so every once in a while Congress needs to raise the limit if it doesn't the treasury Department won't be able to pay all the Count's bills in full and on time now the treasury does have a little wiggle room before it gets to the that point what it calls Extraordinary Measures to move money around but eventually the accounting tricks run out and there's no more avoiding the debt ceiling that's usually

when the fireworks break out I want you all to remember that it was just last spring that the same Democrats berated Republicans and said that it was irresponsible to hold the the debt limit the debt ceiling hostage what changed the problem here is that they're asking only to to get rid of the debt ceiling for a short period of time to allow them to do a massive new tax cut for billionaires and millionaires there are some Republicans who've never voted to raise the debt limit and never will now many say raising the debt ceiling is

just a license to spend more money and grow the debt but it's not really raising the debt ceiling just lets treasury pay the bills America already owes it's about prior debts incurred uh and obviously we have to pay our debts just as every American has to pay down their credit card if Congress really wants to clamp down on debt it has to do it a lot earlier like before passing spending bills or tax cuts both of which can add to deficits failing to raise the debt ceiling won't keep a lid on debt it just risked

the US defaulting on its obligations something that could forever stain America's Global reputation Pop Quiz Hot Shot ethology is the study of what natural material and how it affects plants other organisms and it's used by people for agricultural needs water soil rocks or sunlight if you said soil yes sir the scientists who study soil health for growing plants are called ethologists now to laser shooting robots have you heard about this AI technology that just might become a GameChanger for Farmers as they look to tackle one of their biggest problems weeds with Farms looking to replace

toxic herbicide with sustainable practices one company has developed a Star Wars likee machine that zaps weeds with lasers like an imperial Stormtrooper they say it's eco-friendly but with laser blasters costing upwards of a million dollars how many already struggling Farmers could actually use this Force to help them turn a profit take a look I love onions meet Steve Gil he grows onions in California and one of the worst enemies on his farm are weeds they're sucking up the same fertilizer that the onions are using and if they get out of control sometimes it does happen

you can lose the feel to weeds and the days of spraying herbicides as a form of weed control could be numbered weeds are adapting in the long run you're going to get a bunch of weeds that you can't even spray because they've become resistant to the chemical tools that we have available enter the laser weed designed by the company carbon robotics the company says the laser weeder can kill up to 200,000 weeds per hour it does it in an automated and chemical-free way by zapping the weeds with photon lasers equipped with tracking cameras what we

are doing is finding and targeting the thing called the merry stem and what happens is it rips apart the cell walls of the plant starting in the Mary stem once you destroy those cell walls and all that stuff leaks all over the place plant is not able to grow anymore painted Vision recognition software identifies what's a weed and what's not and targets the weeds with submillimeter accuracy because it's powered by AI the laser weeder is constantly learning how to improve all of these machines are uploading images from all over the world and then we're training

new AIS and redeploying them to all those machines and because the fields aren't being sprayed with as many chemicals the soil becomes is healthier which could help farmers grow those bigger and tastier vegetables we all crave the state ofal farming is the direction that we have to go to get better crops every little piece of technology that we use to make the crop better benefits the [Applause] consumer today's story getting a 10 out of 10 a boat for a buck can you believe this boat cost just $1 but before you celebrate thinking you could snag

this steal of a deal check the fine print the boat is stuck on a beach and getting it back in the water will cost a pretty penny CNN's Jeremy Roth shows us how one Captain found his sailboat in low tide and is now feeling the peer pressure to get it sold sailboat stuck buy it for a buck that's more or less the deal in Florida from a sailboat Captain whose vessel ran ground in New Smyrna Beach following an attempted Voyage cut short by rough surf Captain Allan escar's boat is now marooned and needs to be

removed within 30 days so he posted on Craigslist offering the vessel for just $1 to anyone willing to remove it I have to talk to my wife to see if we're in the market uh for a sail boo I have a dollar I'll pay where is he at but before interested parties start counting their pennies Asar says there is a costly catch to this seemingly too good to be true deal it will be operation by land at this point and it will cost like 20 $20,000 all together getting a sailboat for a dollar may be

Priceless but getting it removed from the Soggy sand is pretty pricey okay so what if nobody buys it critical thinking exercise for all of you creative minds out there if you're the mayor of New Smyrna Beach Florida and nobody buys the boat and moves it what would you suggest the city do with the abandoned boat all right remember to send those vocabulary words to @ kwire on social media for tomorrow's hash your word Wednesday so we can show you some love on the show like The Stingers of sonor and trails Middle School in Phoenix Arizona

one of my favorite places on the planet rise up make it a terrific Tuesday y'all and I'll see you tomorrow [Music]