Budget wonks describe the uncharted territory following a failure to raise the debt ceiling in ominous terms. "It's so far beyond the range of historical experience," says Kathy Ruffing, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. "We've never gotten that far," says Susan Irving, Director for Federal Budget Analysis at the Government Accountability Office. None of this has budged House Speaker John Boehner, who, intent on holding the full faith and credit of the United States of America subject to concessions from the president, said yesterday that he might not even hold a vote "if the president doesn't get serious about the need to address our fiscal nightmare."
There are "extraordinary measures" that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner can take in order to prevent the U.S. from defaulting. Some of these are so extraordinary that they require Geithner to declare a "debt issuance suspension period" before taking them. In the past, other Treasury secretaries have taken similar actions, but some methods are no longer available, and others aren't as effective as they once were. Weeks ago Geithner warned Congress that because the federal debt is increasing at such a fast clip -- to the tune of $125 billion per month -- these extraordinary actions don't pack the punch they used to, giving the government only about two months before plummeting into default. Below is a detailed list of the extraordinary measures Geithner can take to keep the government's head above water. None of them are actions Treasury wants to take, and the closer to the deadline we get without raising the debt ceiling, the more spooked the markets get.
