Nov. 27, 2012
By Steve Bell, Loren Adler, Shai Akabas and Brian Collins
As the federal government continues to spend substantially more than it collects in revenue—running deficits of over $1 trillion per year—federal debt is rapidly approaching the statutory limit once again.
On that matter, the Bipartisan Policy Center projects that:
- The U.S. Treasury will reach its current statutory debt limit in the last week of December;
- Absent congressional action prior to such time, Treasury will have available Extraordinary Measures amounting to approximately $197 billion in order to continue meeting federal financial obligations; and,
- The “X Date” – the date after which Extraordinary Measures are exhausted and Treasury has insufficient cash on hand to make all payments when owed – would occur in February 2013, absent an increase in the debt limit.
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Attached files
Staff Paper, Economic Policy Project