US treasury secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the world's largest economy may run out of measures to repay its debt obligations by as early as June 1.
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This deadline is earlier than what the government and Wall Street has been anticipating.
If the Congress does not raise or suspend the debt limit before June 1, the treasury department will be unable to continue to satisfy all of the government's obligations, Yellen wrote in a letter to House speaker Kevin McCarthy, citing new data on tax receipts that forced the preponement of the estimate.
Economists at Goldman Sachs had projected the deadline to be around late-July, but also warned that weaker-than-expected tax receipts can advance that timeline.
A White House official told NBC that President Joe Biden has called the “big four” congressional leaders — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, McCarthy and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries for a meeting at the White House on May 9 to discuss the debt limit.
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While there is still a month to June 1, there are only eight legislative days in May where both the House and the Senate will be in session simultaneously. Experts believe that this and weak tax receipts significantly increase the risk that the Treasury will run out of funds in early June.
It has been over two months since the White House has refused to participate in debt limit talks, insisting that House Republicans should first pass a debt-limit hike without any strings attached. In exchange for the same, the House GOP has demanded sweeping cuts to Federal spending.
The Goldman Sachs estimate noted that so far there have been few ripples in the markets from the rising risk of a debt default. But this could change, analysts wrote, “once the Treasury announces a specific deadline for Congress to raise the debt limit.”
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(With Inputs From Agencies.)