WASHINGTON (AP) – The Treasury Department has unveiled plans to borrow $673 billion in the current quarter while employing emergency measures to keep the government from an unprecedented default on the national debt.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday announced a new round of measures to keep the government under the newly established debt limit, including halting investments in some pension funds for government workers.
The department said that its plans for borrowing in the July-September period assume Congress will pass either a suspension of the current debt limit or an increase in the limit.
The debt limit had been suspended for two years. That allowed the government to borrow as much as needed to pay bills and service its outstanding debt. But under legislation passed two years ago, the limit has gone back into effect at the level where the debt stood on Sunday – $28.4 trillion.
Yellen has said a failure to increase the debt limit would be catastrophic. She has said the emergency measures to keep the government from breaching the limit are expected to only last until this fall.