Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner again inserted himself into fiscal cliff negotiations Wednesday, sending a two-paragraph letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., informing him that the federal government will reach its $16.394 trillion legal borrowing limit in less than a weak. “I am writing to inform you that the statutory debt limit will be reached on December 31, 2012,” Geithner wrote. That’s quite a way to celebrate the New Year.

Geithner’s letter also said Treasury would soon begin taking certain “extraordinary measures” that would “create approximately $200 billion in headroom under the debt limit.” “Under normal circumstances, that amount of headroom would last approximately two months,” Geithner wrote. But “the expiring tax provisions and automatic spending cuts” scheduled to begin on January 1st could add “some additional time to the duration of the extraordinary measures,” he explained.