WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States faces financial devastation within eight days unless Congress acts to raise the country’s debt limit, US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warned in an op-ed he published in USA Today on Monday.
“The full faith and credit of the United States is at stake,” Lew warned. “By waiting to the last minute to act on the debt limit, Congress could cause a terrible accident.”
Lew noted that the US Treasury would run out of legal authority from Congress on November 3, but the Republican majority in the House of Representatives still refuses to raise the debt ceiling.
In 2011 and 2013, the Republican-controlled Congress came very close to all what Lew described as “potential economic catastrophe,” he recalled.
According to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, the 2013 debt limit impasse cost the American taxpayers between $38 billion and $70 billion in additional borrowing costs alone.
“Since we reached the debt limit in March, Treasury has been using extraordinary measures to borrow money and pay our bills. Most recently, I notified Congress that we will run out of extraordinary measures no later than Nov. 3. My first letter was seven months ago, and now we have eight days, as of Monday,” Lew said.
For 226 years, the United States has been a nation that consistently pays its bills, he pointed out.
“There is no way of knowing the full extent of the damage defaulting on our obligations would cause for the US and global economy, and it should be inconceivable to find out,” Lew added.
The US national debt has reached $18.4 trillion and has increased $8 trillion since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, The Hill noted on Monday.
