Yellen urges U.S. Congress to act quickly on debt limit

Yellen urges U.S. Congress to act quickly on debt limit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday that the United States would likely hit the statutory limit on its debt on Jan. 19, forcing the Treasury to take “extraordinary measures” to prevent a default.

“Once the limit is reached, Treasury will need to start taking certain extraordinary measures to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations,” Yellen said in a letter to congressional leaders in which she urged lawmakers to act quickly to raise the debt ceiling.

“While Treasury is not currently able to provide an estimate of how long extraordinary measures will enable us to continue to pay the governments obligations, it is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June,” the letter added.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Tim Ahmann)

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