Treasury secretary warns of 'calamity' if Congress doesn't raise debt limit

Testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Yellen said the U.S. would hit its debt limit in less than three weeks, on Oct. 18.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday that if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling by the deadline it would be a ‘calamity.’

Testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs alongside Federal Reserve System Chairman Jerome Powell, Yellen said the U.S. would hit its debt limit in less than three weeks, on Oct. 18.

"This would be a manufactured crisis we had imposed on this country, which has been going through a very difficult period and is on the road to recovery," she said. "This would be a self-inflicted wound of enormous proportions."

The United States has never defaulted on its debt. Congress has voted 80 times to raise or suspend the debt limit since 1960.