America’s debt ceiling debacle is back. The federal government hit its debt limit yesterday, necessitating a set of “extraordinary measures”, or accounting tricks, by the US treasury department to keep the government open and prevent it defaulting on its debt.
Jack Lew, the Treasury secretary, has said the measures would have to remain in place until Congress agrees to raise the debt ceiling, after a temporary suspension of the limit enacted a year ago expired on Sunday night.
“Because Congress has not yet acted to raise the debt limit, the treasury department will have to employ further extraordinary measures to continue to finance the government on a temporary basis,” Mr Lew said in a recent letter to Congress.
Congress has been setting a debt limit