Washington DC May 13 2023: The US Treasury Department said in a statement Friday that it had just $88 billion of extraordinary measures to help keep the government’s bills paid as of May 10.
That’s down from around $110 billion a week earlier and that means that just over a quarter of the $333 billion of authorized measures are still available to keep the US government from running out of borrowing room under the statutory debt limit.
The measures are a collection of various accounting gimmicks that enable the administration to keep selling debt even though it has run up against the $31.4 trillion borrowing ceiling imposed by Congress.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said earlier this month that the government is at risk of running out of headroom as soon as June 1 and Treasury markets have shifted to price in a default premium for securities maturing around that date. The cost of insuring US debt against non-payment has also soared.
A face-to-face meeting this week between President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the debt impasse produced little sign of movement, but negotiations between staffers are ongoing and the leaders are scheduled to meet again next week.
