Thursday, January 19, 2023

We hit the ceiling

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday notified congressional leaders that her office will begin to implement “extraordinary measures” to keep the U.S. government from defaulting on its debt.

The nation’s debt climbed to more than $31.4 trillion this week, federal financial data shows, crossing the threshold set by Congress when it last raised the nation’s borrowing limit more than a year ago.

[...]

Those measures include temporarily redeeming existing and suspending new investments of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund.

Yellen also pointed to “suspending reinvestment of the Government Securities Investment Fund (G Fund) of the Federal Employees Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan” as another course of action in a letter last week.

While it’s unclear how long the Treasury Department will be able to utilize the measures to prevent a default, Yellen told leaders on Thursday that a “debt issuance suspension period” would last through June 5.

  The Hill



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