Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew says he will start using emergency measures after Feb. 7 to avoid a first-ever default on the national debt. He says he expects to exhaust those measures quickly.
Lew said in a speech Monday that he expected to run out of maneuvering room by the end of this month. Congress suspended the debt limit last October as part of a deal to re-open the government after a partial shutdown. But the suspension ends on Friday.
After that time, Lew can employ various measures to keep the government operating without breaching the debt limit.
But he said because of the time of the year, those measures will probably only last until Feb. 28. He said Congress should act without delay to increase the debt ceiling.
(Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
