Treasury Begins Efforts to Avoid Debt Ceiling
Posted at 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 27, 2012
The Treasury Department announced that it will “hit its legal borrowing limit by Monday, setting in motion emergency measures to keep the government operating for several more weeks,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
“The Treasury’s financial maneuvering is designed to put off until February or March the prospect of a full-blown debt crisis. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s two-paragraph letter to Congress didn’t specify when the emergency measures might be exhausted, blaming the ‘significant uncertainty that now exists with regard to unresolved tax and spending policies for 2013.’”
Marketplace looks at the origins and history of the debt ceiling, which was created in 1917 to make the government more efficient.
