The US Treasury had just $33 billion of extraordinary measures left to help keep the government’s bills paid as of May 31, the department said in a statement Friday.
(Bloomberg) — The US Treasury had just $33 billion of extraordinary measures left to help keep the government’s bills paid as of May 31, the department said in a statement Friday.
That’s out of a total of $337 billion of authorized measures that were available to keep the US government from running out of borrowing room under the statutory debt limit and is down from around $67 billion on May 24.
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.
The Senate passed legislation to suspend the US debt ceiling and impose restraints on government spending through the 2024 election, ending a drama that threatened a global financial crisis. President Joe Biden will sign the debt-limit deal as soon as Saturday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had warned that in the absence of a deal on the debt cap the government could run short of funds as soon as June 5.
Meanwhile, the Treasury’s cash balance fell to just $22.892 billion on Thursday, according to data published Friday. That put the Treasury coffers on a par with a level last reached in October 2015. It was around $25.62 billion below the half-decade low it was at a day earlier. The Treasury’s bank account has been under downward pressure recently because of measures being taken to avoid breaching the cap.
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