system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is there a debt ceiling at all when all they do is continually raise it?

Seeing as it has only gone up in history, why bother with having one at all? Is it just for the sake of trying to keep track of the money?
gpt
The short version is because the idea is to give Congress oversight, even if they've never actually exercised it (and it would be destructive to do it).

It's important to remember that prior to the existence of the debt ceiling, every single time the U.S was going to go into debt required separate congressional action.  The debt ceiling was created to allow the executive branch to take out debt without specific Congressional approval up to a certain amount.

At various times, there have been streamlinings of the process: the Gephardt rule stood for 16 years and basically said that when Congress appropriates money, it is deemed to raise the debt ceiling to cover whatever they appropriated.

But the reason it's still around is that while it would be terrible to not raise the debt ceiling (and it's rare for them to even consider not raising it), Congress doesn't want to give up that oversight power.