WASHINGTON, May 24 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Wednesday urged Congress to raise the debt limit before its August recess to avoid a potential federal government default.
"I urge you to raise the debt limit before you leave for the summer," Mnuchin said before the House Ways and Means Committee, adding that he would prefer a "clean" debt limit increase, which would not include any additional provisions.
The U.S. Treasury has begun using bookkeeping maneuvers to continue to finance the government's activities since the federal government's outstanding debt reached its statutory limit on March 15.
These extraordinary measures could help the Treasury have sufficient cash to make essential payments "until sometime in the fall of this year" without an increase in the debt limit, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
But Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, warned on Wednesday that Congress may have to raise the debt limit sooner than previously expected.
"The (tax) receipts, currently, are coming in slower than expected and you may soon hear from Mnuchin about a change in the date," Mulvaney told the House Budget Committee.
"We look forward to working with the Hill on the best way to go about this," he said.
The debt limit is the maximum amount of debt that the Treasury can issue to the public and to the other federal agencies. The amount of outstanding debt subject to limit has now risen to about 19.9 trillion U.S. dollars.
