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WASHINGTON (AP) - Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew held a conference call Tuesday with members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to discuss the deadline for raising the nation's borrowing limit.
Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley says Lew discussed the Oct. 17 date by which time Lew has said he'll have exhausted the accounting steps he's used to prevent the government from breaching its $16.7 trillion debt limit. Lew has warned that soon afterward, the government will be forced into default if the borrowing limit isn't raised.
Coley says Congress' failure to raise the debt limit "could severely impact financial markets and the broader economy."
Coley says the council, which includes regulators of Wall Street and other financial markets, discussed what officials were hearing from market participants about how a default could affect markets.
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