Xinhua Silk Road - Belt and Road Portal, China's silk road economic belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Website Xinhua Silk Road - Belt and Road Portal, China's silk road economic belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Website
Subscribe CustomBlackClose

Belt & Road Weekly Subscription Form

download_pop

Research ReportCustomBlackClose

The full edition of the report is available at Xinhua Silk Road Database. You can click the “Table of Content” to have a general understanding of it.

Click on the button below to create your account and get immediate access to thousands of articles.

Start a Free Trial

Xinhua Silk Road Database
Economy

U.S. Treasury urges Congress to increase debt limit

March 17, 2017


Abstract : U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday urged Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible to avoid a potential federal government default.

WASHINGTON, March 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday urged Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible to avoid a potential federal government default.

"I respectfully urge Congress to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting to increase the statutory debt limit as soon as possible," Mnuchin said in a letter sent to Republican and Democratic leaders in both chambers of Congress.

Mnuchin warned that beginning Thursday, the federal government's outstanding debt was at the statutory limit. It means the Treasury has no room to borrow under standard operating procedures from Thursday.

In order to temporarily prevent the government from defaulting on its obligations, the Treasury begun using "extraordinary measures" to continue to finance the government's activities, said Mnuchin.

These extraordinary measures could help the Treasury have sufficient cash to make essential payments "until sometime in the fall of this year" without an increase in the debt limit, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

At that time, the Treasury will have exhausted extraordinary measures and would need to borrow more money to avoid a government debt default.

The debt limit is the maximum amount of debt that the Treasury can issue to the public and to the other federal agencies. The amount of outstanding debt subject to limit has now risen to about 19.9 trillion U.S. dollars.

Scan the QR code and push it to your mobile phone

Keyword: US US-Treasury Congress

Write to Us belt & road login close

Do you want to be a contributor to Xinhua Silk Road and tell us your Belt & Road story? Send your articles to [email protected] and share your stories with more people.

Click on the button below to create your account and get im http://img.silkroad.news.cn/templates/silkroad/en2017te access to thousands of articles.

Start a Free Trial

Ask Us A Question belt & road login close

If you have any questions, please enter them in the box below.

Identifying code Reload

Write to Us belt & road login close

Do you want to be a contributor to Xinhua Silk Road and tell us your Belt & Road story? Send your articles to silkroadweekly@xinhua.org and share your stories with more people.

Click on the button below to create your account and get im http://img.silkroad.news.cn/templates/silkroad/en2017te access to thousands of articles.

Start a Free Trial