Federal Debt and the Statutory Limit, March 2017

[Michelle420]

"The debt limit—commonly referred to as the debt ceiling—is the maximum amount of debt that the Department of the Treasury can issue to the public and to other federal agencies. That amount is set by law and has been increased over the years in order to finance the government’s operations. Currently, there is no statutory limit on the issuance of new federal debt because the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (Public Law 114-74), enacted in November 2015, suspended the debt ceiling through March 15, 2017. On March 16, the limit will be reset to reflect cumulative borrowing through the period of suspension. Absent additional legislation that further suspended or increased the debt limit, existing statutes allow the Treasury to declare a “debt issuance suspension period” on March 16, 2017, and take a number of “extraordinary measures” to borrow additional funds without breaching the new debt ceiling. The Congressional Budget Office projects that if the debt limit remains unchanged, those measures will probably be exhausted and the Treasury will probably run out of cash sometime in the fall of 2017."

https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/reports/52465-federaldebtlimit.pdf

Does that mean as a Country in the fall of 2017 we could be broke?

 

[JakeStarkey]

It means that after all the heck of the summer of 2011 and the subsequent sequestration, the Congress and the President will happily raise the ceiling this time.

 

[Michelle420]

It means that after all the heck of the summer of 2011 and the subsequent sequestration, the Congress and the President will happily raise the ceiling this time.

Thanks. I had signed up to get email updates because of a class I was taking. But I never unsubscribed after class ended just wondered what is supposed to happen next.

 

[jwoodie]

I would like to see a controlled shutdown of government operations that was not designed to maximize publicity regarding inconvenience to the public.