Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Congress on Tuesday that the country will reach its limit on borrowing on Oct. 18.
The department has been taking extraordinary measures for months to avoid defaulting on its debts. The steps include not funding civil service and postal service retirement programs. But those measures will be exhausted, leaving “very limited resources that will be depleted quickly.”
“It is uncertain whether we could continue to meet all the nation’s commitments after that date,” Yellen wrote in a letter to leaders of both parties in Congress and on the tax-writing committees. “The full faith and credit of the United States should not be put at risk.”
She has already warned of catastrophic consequences if the country were to default on its loans. Just edging up the deadline can cause “serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise borrowing costs for taxpayers and negatively impact the credit rating for the United States for years to come,” she wrote.
– Bart Jansen
Another piece of legislation expecting a House vote this week is the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which includes $550 billion in new funding that the Senate has already approved.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill enjoys broad support. But progressive House Democrats have insisted that it move in tandem with a $3.5 trillion package of Biden's priorities, which is still under negotiation between the House and Senate.
A group of nine moderate House Democrats got a commitment to vote Monday on infrastructure, whether the larger package was finished or not. The deadline slipped to Thursday, but a leader of the moderates, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., said it wouldn’t slip again.
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