We're saved!
In a letter to Congress on Friday, Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen pushed back the deadline for the debt ceiling to June 5.
"Based on the most recent available data, we now estimate that Treasury will have insufficient resources to satisfy the government's obligations if Congress has not raised or suspended the debt limit by June 5," she wrote in the letter.
Originally, Yellen said the U.S. would run out of cash by June 1, but this gives us a little more time to figure out how we're going to stop hemorrhaging cash by the trillions.
Let's check in on the U.S. national debt, shall we?
On Wednesday, Fitch Ratings "put America's AAA long-term foreign currency issuer default rating on negative watch," which means the USA is closer to default than ever before.
If you want to know what that actually means, imagine your own family. You've maxed out the credit cards, borrowed against the house, and you're still spending $2,000 more a month than you make. That's the U.S. government right now.
You have a week or so until your first bills are due to keep the lights on and your car from being repoed.
How are you going to get more money?
- The smart man or woman says, "Hey, I'll stop spending and start tackling the debt!"
- The dumb man (and the U.S. government) says "Hey, I'll just ask the bank if I can increase my credit limit!" Expect this to happen after everyone in DC gets a little quid pro quo thrown their way. Senators need their new vacation homes, after all.
The impasse this time, as usual, comes from the pouncing Republicans who don't want the United States to go bankrupt, and that makes Joe Biden angry, because he wants an unlimited line of credit.
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and their negotiators are working to reach an agreement. Republicans are demanding that any deal must cut federal spending in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.
But since Joe's not gonna get everything he wants, he'll need something else to raise more money to satiate his bottomless desires:
I predict Joe's last campaign promises are about to go out the window!
