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10
POLITICS White House
JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP
President Obama will request another $1.2 trillion in borrowing authority Friday. The
limit was already raised to $16.4 trillion in a last-minute deal reached in August.
DEBT CEILING
By Christopher S. Rugaber
The Associated Press
The Obama administration says
the federal government has nearly
reached its borrowing limit
again.
Treasury ofcials said Tues-
day that the White House plans
to request another $1.2 trillion in
borrowing authority Friday. The
increase is necessary, they say,
because the government will be
within $100 billion of its current
limit by then.
In the past, such a request would
be routine. But this one follows a
summer of intense partisan debate
over the nations record debt, which
has yet to end despite a last-minute
deal reached in August that averted
a potential default.
The increase would boost the
debt limit to $16.4 trillion. Congress
and the Obama administration
agreed to raise it to that level in
three steps as part of the August
deal.
Ofcials say that should be
enough to allow the government
to keep borrowing until the end of
2012, or just after the presidential
election.
Congress can reject the request,
although Obama can veto their
objection. If Congress doesnt act by
Jan. 14, the increase will take place
automatically.
The debt limit is the amount
the government can borrow to
nance its operations. It has
soared because the government
has run record decits over the
past decade.
The borrowed money has helped
pay for two wars, stimulate the
nations economy after the worst
recession since the Great Depres-
sion and nance broad tax cuts
initiated during the Bush adminis-
tration.
The size of the debt has also
stoked a debate in Congress
over spending and taxes.
Polls show growing voter anger
with the inability of both parties
to reach solutions to the countrys
budget problems.
In August, Congress and the
administration agreed to raise the
borrowing limit by $2.1 trillion in
three steps. The deal was reached
hours before a potential default on
the nations debt and only after the
parties also agreed to cut more than
$2 trillion from the decit over the
next 10 years.
Three days after the agreement
was signed into law, credit rating
agency Standard & Poors down-
graded long-term U.S. debt. A key
reason for the downgrade was the
difculty Congress and the White
House had in reaching an agree-
ment, S&P said.
The parties remain at odds over
howto reduce the decit. In Novem-
ber, a bipartisan panel failed to meet
a deadline to agree on $1.2 trillion of
the cuts. That means automatic cuts
of that amount will begin in January
2013 a condition included in last
summers deal.
Republicans want to modify the
timetable for the automatic cuts,
largely because it includes steep
cuts to the nations defense budget.
Administration to ask for
increase in borrowing limit
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