BUDGET/TREASURY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE/STEVE MNUCHIN: “Trump administration officials, testifying on Capitol Hill Wednesday [5-23-17] on their 10-year budget plans, pointed to a more pressing fiscal problem: They could run out of room to pay the government’s bills within the next few months.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asked Congress to raise the debt limit—which risks shutting off the government’s ability to tap bond markets for new cash to fund its operations—before lawmakers leave for their summer recess.
Government debt, at nearly $20 trillion, hit Congress’s self-imposed limit in mid-March. Since then, the Treasury Department has been employing cash-conservation measures to keep funding itself, steps it has taken routinely in recent years after repeated breaches of the ceiling. But those measures, which include redeeming some investments in federal pension programs, are temporary and can typically only keep funding the government for a few months.
Analysts expected the measures would allow Treasury to keep paying its bills until the fall, but Mr. Mnuchin suggested lawmakers should act before the end of July.”
-Kate Davidson abd Richard Rubin, “Mnuchin Wants Debt-Limit Increase With No Conditions Attached,” The Wall Street Journal online, May 24, 2017 6:15pm