Yellen: U.S. on track to default on national debt in October [View all]

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday warned congressional leaders that the U.S. is on track to default on the national debt in October if the White House and Congress are unable to raise the debt limit.

In a Wednesday letter, Yellen said that the Treasury Department would likely run out of cash and exhaust “extraordinary” measures to keep the federal government within its legal borrowing limit at some point next month.

"Once all available measures and cash on hand are fully exhausted, the United States of America would be unable to meet its obligations for the first time in our history," Yellen said.

At: https://thehill.com/policy/finance/571237-yellen-us-on-track-to-default-on-national-debt-in-october

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifying in the Senate in June.

Yellen warned that failing to raise the debt ceiling - which was restored on August 1 - in a timely way, could by October result in the nation's first federal debt default in history.

Congressional Republicans are largely opposed to raising the ceiling on the $28 trillion federal debt - setting the stage for a showdown similar to the 2011 debt ceiling crisis.