Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Monday he worries that waiting until the last minute to raise the nation’s borrowing authority could result in an accident “that would be terrible.”
Last week, Lew said the U.S. debt ceiling will be exhausted Nov. 3, two days before previously estimated. In a letter to congressional leaders, he added that a remaining cash balance of less than $30 billion would swiftly deplete.
“Our best estimate is November 3rd is when we’ll exhaust what we call extraordinary measures; those are things we can do to manage things. I will run out of things that I can manage on November 3rd,” Lew told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
The federal government is scraping by just under its $18 trillion legal borrowing limit.
