As Congress continues to deal with the U.S. debt ceiling, the Treasury Department says it will run out of money by Nov. 3.

Meanwhile, Congress is in the midst of changing its leaders. The Republican-led chamber voted for a House speaker on Wednesday afternoon, just a few days before the U.S. is expected to run out of money.

If the country actually runs out of money, Congress can either raise the ceiling, suspend it for a little while or eliminate it entirely. Currently, the cap is set at $18 trillion. Congress has raised the debt ceiling 74 times since March 1962. On a few occasions, Congress went as far as suspending it.

As of Sept. 30, the national debt was at $18.1 trillion. The public portion of national debt was about $13 trillion while the government reached a debt amount close to $5 trillion.

Politicians are working on fixing the national debt, which is one of the hot topics for the 2016 presidential race. What will the next president do to help the U.S. to relieve some of its debt?

If Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, then the Treasury will not be able to issue additional funds. It could also mean that there will be an inability to make timely interest payments on the current outstanding debt. Not raising the debt ceiling could also result in greater credit risk which would lead to higher interest rates. Yet, it is unlikely for Congress to not raise the ceiling by the deadline.

Meanwhile, the White House and Democrats want to just simply raise the ceiling but Republicans rather see deeper spending cuts and other reforms.

If the U.S. were to run out of money, several parties would be affected including Social Security and Medicare recipients, taxpayers, homebuyers and more.

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