The federal government will run out of cash to pay all its bills sometime between July and September unless the statutory debt limit is lifted, the Congressional Budget Office warned Wednesday.
The report by the nonpartisan budget scorekeeper could put pressure on a divided Congress to reach a deal to increase, or at least suspend, the debt limit before adjourning for the annual August recess.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen last month began deploying “extraordinary measures,” such as suspending investments in certain federal trust funds, to keep from exceeding the $31.4 trillion statutory borrowing cap. Yellen estimated at the time that those accounting tools may not last beyond early June. The agency’s current crop of extraordinary measures, triggered by what’s known as a “debt issuance suspension period,” are set to end June 5.
