Treasury cash pile slumped to match 2015 low during debt-cap saga
THE amount of money the US government had to pay its bills plunged to the lowest level in more than seven years, just as Congress passed legislation that suspends the statutory borrowing limit until 2025.
The Treasury’s cash balance fell to just US$22.892 billion on Thursday (Jun 2), according to data published Friday. That put the Treasury coffers on a par with a level last reached in October 2015.
It was around US$25.62 billion below the half-decade low it was at a day earlier. The Treasury’s bank account has been under downward pressure recently because of measures being taken to avoid breaching the US$31.4 trillion debt cap.
Meanwhile, the Treasury had just US$33 billion of extraordinary measures left to help keep the government’s bills paid as of May 31, the department said in a statement Friday.
That is out of a total of US$337 billion of authorised measures – a collection of various accounting gimmicks – that were available.
The Senate has now passed legislation to suspend the US debt ceiling and impose restraints on government spending through the 2024 election, ending a drama that threatened to snowball into a bigger financial crisis.
President Joe Biden will sign the debt-limit deal as soon as Saturday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
Once the agreement is signed into law, the Treasury is expected to quickly replenish its cash balance by ramping up its cache of bills. BLOOMBERG
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