CBO: US could reach $18.1 trillion debt limit in mid-November

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The Hill :

The United States will likely hit the $18.1 trillion debt limit around mid-November or early December, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted Tuesday.

 

The deadline is crucial for Congress, which must approve an increase in the government’s borrowing authority to prevent a first-ever default on the national debt.

 

“By CBO’s estimate, the Treasury would most likely be able to continue borrowing and have sufficient cash to make its usual payments through mid-November or early December without an increase in the debt limit,” the CBO said in a report.

 

CBO’s projected deadline is later than the one Treasury Secretary Jack Lew gave lawmakers before they left town for the August recess. He warned lawmakers they could have to deal with the debt ceiling as early as late October, though he cautioned that the situation is fluid.

 

Lew is expected to give lawmakers a firm deadline in the weeks ahead.

 

The Treasury Department has had to rely on so-called “extraordinary measures” to avoid default. Congress last raised the debt ceiling in February 2014.