US Has Used Up 90.4% Debt Limit So Far...

Found this place to really, really scare you.

It takes you to the Daily Treasury Statement that tells you exactly, as of the given day, the status of US debt in fairly decent detail.

The US debt ceiling is $14,294,000 million, that's $14.3 trillion dollars.

As of Friday, the US government had debt subject to the debt ceiling limit of $12,870,073 million, $12.9 trillion.

In other words, 90.4% of the debt ceiling has been used, and it's only May.

At the current rate of increases to the debt (some $267,273 billion per month), the debt ceiling will be reached in just over 5 months.

But that is only if the rate of the last 30 days is maintained, and it is low: the average increase in US debt for the year so far has been $839,774 billion per month.


If the debt were to continue at that past, the debt limit would have to be increased within the next month.

On Friday, the Treasury redeemed $253,741 million in Treasury Bills while issuing $190,725 million for a net change in debt of $63,016 million, on a single day. At that rate of increase, there are 22 business days left before the debt ceiling has been reached (actually, 22.6 days): that means on June 16 the debt ceiling will have been completely exhausted, barring a new increase or unforeseen need to increase the rate of debt accumulation.

I think this qualifies for the word "unsustainable".



Ye gods.

What happens when the debt ceiling is reached?

Simple: the Treasury may not acquire any additional debt, unless Congress raises the debt ceiling. Government finances grind to a halt, as the government may only redeem debt, not finance any new debt.

At the current rate, an increase in the debt ceiling would come up for approval in ... October. That's going to work very, very well in terms of timing for the upcoming mid-term elections.

In any case: yikes.


Hat tip: ZeroHedge.