WASHINGTON: The Treasury Department said Monday it plans to borrow $1.02 trillion during the current quarter, the largest amount since the government began passing trillion-dollar rescue packages for the economy in the spring of 2020.
Treasury said the borrowing estimate for the October-December quarter would follow $103 billion in actual borrowing in the July-September quarter, a period when the debt limit went back into effect after being suspended for two years.
Treasury officials said they expect to borrow another $476 billion in next year’s January-March quarter.
However, actual borrowing, however, will depend on whether Congress deals with the need to raise or suspend the debt limit. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that the $480 billion increase in the debt limit passed by Congress in October will only allow the government to keep paying its bills through Dec. 3.
Yellen, in a letter to congressional leaders in mid-October, said the increase in the debt limit provides only a temporary reprieve.
Treasury officials said the borrowing plans they laid out Monday were contingent on Congress dealing with the debt limit before Yellen runs out of maneuvering room to use extraordinary measures to avoid defaulting on the nation’s debt. Yellen has warned that a debt default would be catastrophic and would likely push the country into a recession.
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