House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is in talks with the White House and Senate leaders to move forward a bill that would lift the U.S. debt limit, Politico reported Wednesday.Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer write that the speaker hopes to send the bill to the House floor soon as he prepares to step down and leave Congress by the end of the month.
The Treasury Department has recommended that the debt ceiling be raised by Nov. 5, the report said.
Republican lawmakers could turn to a standalone bill if discussions regarding a budget package with a provision to increase the debt cap fail to produce an agreement, Sherman and Palmer add.
Richard Cowan also reports for Reuters that the Congressional Budget Office echoed Treasury’s assessment that the government could default on some debt if the current borrowing limit stays as it is.
“Treasury will begin running a very low cash balance in early November and the extraordinary measures will be exhausted and the cash balance entirely depleted sometime during the first half of November,” CBO said, according to the report.
Cowan writes that CBO’s previous estimate is for Treasury to exhaust its borrowing authority between mid-November and early December.
