The Federal Government Has Again Hit the Debt Ceiling. Now What?

The Blaze ^ | 03/17/2015 | Pete Kasperowicz

[SeekAndFind]

While you were sleeping...

The final debt figure for today will come out later this week, it’s expected to be a limit of about $18.2 trillion.

But the government has some wiggle room for handling its debt situation while Congress considers whether and how to raise the debt ceiling, a process that could still take months to sort out. Most importantly, the Treasury Department can use “extraordinary measures” to cope with the debt, which are several tools the government has used before when up against its borrowing limit.

For example, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told Congress on Friday that as of Monday, he would stop issuing new debt to fill up the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, and the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan. Those funds are used to pay out tens of billions of dollars worth of retirement benefits to federal workers each year.

“These actions have been employed during previous debt limit impasses,” Lew wrote.

The action means a real short-term hit to the two pension funds, but it’s one Congress can compensate for later. According to a Congressional Research Service report, federal workers contribute some to their pensions, but the federal government contributes huge amounts itself, and borrows money from other accounts to do so.

The government may also find additional wiggle room in the coming weeks, as April 15 income tax receipts flood the federal coffers and temporarily remove the need for immediate borrowing.

But the inevitable can only be held off for so long, and Lew again urged Congress to quickly increase the debt ceiling in anticipation of the need for billions more in government debt.

[i_robot73]

NO plan in D.C. has any merit when the Constitution is being subverted.

Did Connie Mack specify where the authority for the DOE, DHS, EPA, etc. were to be found? Nope. But, I suspect he kept them on the teat just the same...some plan.

Got a better one, and it’s already been passed: the 13th Amendment. If slavery is already outlawed, then the ‘income tax’ should be null/void (as now, you’re just talking degrees of enslavement). Coupled with the 5th (Takings), that should wither on the vine any extra-constitutional B.S./programs.

Course, no logic is permitted in D.C.