Congress has until mid-November or early December to raise the debt ceiling before the Treasury runs out of cash to pay the government’s bills, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday.
The debt ceiling projection came as part of the nonpartisan official budget agency’s updated budget and economic projections published Tuesday.
The CBO’s projection of the expected date at which the government will have trouble paying its bills is later than some previous estimates from the Treasury. The shift is largely because tax revenue has been higher than expected.
CBO’s projection now tracks with that of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit think tank that closely watches developments around the debt ceiling.
The debt ceiling was reinstated at $18.1 trillion in March after being suspended last year as part of budget negotiations between the Obama administration and Republicans.
Since March, the Treasury Department has taken a number of steps to free up cash to pay incoming bills without lifting the ceiling, which prevents it from issuing new bonds that would drive total federal debt about the limit.
It has enough of such “extraordinary measures” at its disposal to last until near the end of the year, according to the CBO. That means that Congress will not be forced to act until after it has to agree on approving government funding, which runs out Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
In recent years, the debt ceiling has been a major point of contention between the Obama administration and congressional Republicans. In 2013, disagreements between the two parties over federal spending led to a government shutdown that also brought the Treasury to within days of being unable to guarantee on-time payments of all its obligations.
