Janet Yellen: Oct. 18 Likely Date When U.S. Debt Measures Exhausted

While the nation has never defaulted on its debts, the Treasury Secretary said that waiting until the last minute to take action would not be wise.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is telling Congress that the Treasury Department will likely exhaust all of its “extraordinary measures” to avoid an unprecedented default on the government’s obligations by Oct. 18.

Yellen warned Congress three weeks ago that the Treasury would run out of maneuvering room by mid-October. In a Tuesday letter, she said economists were able to issue a specific date based on the amount of revenue the U.S. had received in September from corporate and private quarterly tax payments.

Yellen’s letter arrived the day after Senate Republicans blocked consideration of a bill to deal with the debt limit and approve a stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown Friday. The expectation is that Democrats will remove the increase in the debt limit and just seek to pass the stop-gap spending bill to avoid a government shutdown.