A separate vote for the debt ceiling is a bad idea by Tyler Cowen January 15, 2013 at 4:14 pm in Current Affairs Economics A rather obvious statement that 84% of polled economists agree with: Because all federal spending and taxes must be approved by both houses of Congress and the executive branch, a separate debt ceiling that has to be increased periodically creates unneeded uncertainty and can potentially lead to worse fiscal outcomes. That is from Brad DeLong.