U.S. Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) attends a news conference following party policy lunch meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. July 11, 2017. (Xinhua/REUTERS)

WASHINGTON, July 11 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday he hoped Congress could vote to raise the debt limit before lawmakers leave for the August recess.

"Ideally, we would deal with the debt ceiling before the August recess," McConnell told reporters, but declining to say whether a vote on the debt ceiling would be tied to spending cuts.

"We'll see, but the debt ceiling must be raised," he said.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer warned on Tuesday that it would be very hard for Democrats to back the increase of the debt limit if it was tied to tax cuts for high-income individuals.

The timeline for a vote on the debt limit comes after McConnell announced that the Senate's August recess would be delayed by two weeks, which would give lawmakers more time to work on important legislative items, including repealing and replacing Obamacare.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has also urged Congress to raise the debt limit before its August recess, but the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the federal government would not run out of cash until mid-October.

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.

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.