Conservatives Forced To Raise Debt Ceiling Again

[Nbadan]

US government warns it's running out of cash 2 hours, 41 minutes ago



WASHINGTON (AFP) - Treasury Secretary John Snow has warned that unless Congress raises the national debt limit, the US government will run out of cash to finance its daily work in two months.


In a letter to Senate leaders Thursday, Snow said the statutory debt limit imposed by Congress of 8.184 trillion dollars would be reached in mid-February and the government would then lose its borrowing power.

"At that time, unless the debt limit is raised or the Treasury Department takes authorized extraordinary actions, we will be unable to continue to finance government operations," said the letter, seen by AFP.

Snow warned that even if the Treasury took "all available prudent and legal actions" to avoid breaching the ceiling, "we anticipate that we can finance government operations no longer than mid-March".

Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051230/ts_afp/uspoliticseconomy)

A complete shut-down of the system until we have real finance reform wouldn't be such a bad thing, now would it?

[Cant_Be_Faded]

nbadan i dont really get it

what are the ramifications if the system shuts down
and why would we run out of money so early in the year

[Nbadan]

There are set debt ceilings in place that the government can surpass without legislative action from both Congress and the Senate. The ramifications of government shutting down are mostly traditional - no one likes to be shut down while they have legislative campaigning to do for their wealthy corporate donors.