Free Republic

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has called on Congress to raise the United States debt limit "at the first opportunity." In a letter to congressional leaders dated Wednesday, Mnuchin said the Treasury will stop issuing certain state and local securities on March 15, when the most recent suspension of the debt limit expires. Mnuchin said the Treasury will likely start aking "extraordinary measures" the next day, when the U.S. will be at its statutory limit, to prevent default. "As I said in my confirmation hearing, honoring the full faith and credit of our outstanding debt is a critical commitment. I encourage...

I know Presidential candidate Rand Paul's campaign is failing but one thing he is good at and that is going after the left and right when it comes to fraud, waste and abuse by our government leaders. He's started a filibuster against the debt ceiling increase that will last until 1am ET Friday morning. He says, "then we will find out who the real conservatives are" I will be uploading clips throughout the day.

(CNSNews.com) - The new spending deal that resigning House Speaker John Boehner has made with the Democratic congressional leadership and President Barack Obama will suspend the legal limit on the federal government’s debt until after Obama leaves office. “Subsection 901(a) provides for the temporary suspension of the limit on public debt through March 15, 2017,” says the official summary of the bill. Obama will leave office on Jan. 20, 2017, when the next president is inaugurated. Since Obama took office, the total debt of the federal government has already increased by $7,525,761,885,381.30—rising from $10,626,877,048,913.08 on Jan. 20, 2009 to $18,152,638,934,294.38...

DENVER -- in the face to conservatives." Likely speaker of the House Paul Ryan has said the process that created it "stinks." But Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is the first Republican to pledge outright that he'll try to scutter the compromise debt limit bill designed to kick any tough new vote into 2017. "I will filibuster the new debt ceiling bill," Paul said at an event on the University of Colorado's Denver campus. "It is horrible, it's hard for me not to use profanity describing it." Paul also called the bill a "steaming pile of legislation," and urged fellow Republicans...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. borrowing authority would be extended until March 2017, beyond the Obama administration, under a deal being negotiated by congressional leaders and the White House, according to a U.S. House of Representatives source. As part of a parallel measure to fund government programs through Sept. 30, 2017, negotiators also aim to stop an increase in Medicare Part B premiums that is otherwise due to start soon.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told Congress on Wednesday that he will extend for another three months the authority he is using to take emergency measures to keep from breaching the nation’s borrowing limit. In a letter to congressional leaders, Lew said he will extend the current debt-suspension period, which was set to expire Friday, through Oct. 30. He said he believes the emergency measures he is using may be sufficient to keep the government operating for a brief period after Oct. 30. Since March 16, Lew has been employing a variety of bookkeeping maneuvers such as removing investments from government...

The U.S. will hit its debt limit on March 16 but with some "extraordinary measures" it will be able to fund the government on a temporary basis, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who urged Congress in a letter to raise the debt limit immediately. In the letter to House Speaker John Boehner and other House and Senate leaders, Lew said on March 13 his office would have to suspend the issuance of some local and and state securities, reports CNBC. "Accordingly, I respectfully ask Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible," Lew wrote in his...

Unless Congress takes action, the U.S. will hit its debt limit on Mar. 16, but would begin taking "extraordinary measures" to finance the government on a temporary basis, according to the U.S. Treasury. In a Friday morning letter to House Speaker John Boehner and other House and Senate leaders, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that his office will be forced to suspend the issuance of State and Local Government Series securities on Mar. 13 unless the debt limit is decreased. "Accordingly, I respectfully ask Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible," Lew wrote in his letter. The...

On the Mark Levin show Thursday Senator Ted Cruz said: The single thing that Republican politicians hate and fear the most, and that is when they’re forced to tell the truth. It makes their heads explode. And actually look, this debt ceiling example is a perfect example. The Republican members of the Senate, they all wanted the perfect show vote. So the whole fight was, was every Senator in the Senate going to consent to allow a clean debt ceiling, to allow Barack Obama to get a blank check to raise our debt, while doing nothing about spending, with just...

Washington (CNN) -- The Senate voted Wednesday to avert at least one chronic Washington political crisis for more than a year. With a snowstorm bearing down on the capital, it approved a House-passed measure that allows the government to borrow more money to pay its bills through March 2015. The White House signaled that President Barack Obama would sign the legislation, so the Senate vote was the last hurdle to resolving the debt ceiling issue until after the November congressional elections. Wednesday's result was a blow to tea party conservatives who oppose any kind of increase in federal borrowing. Filibuster...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Senate will begin voting on a House-passed bill to extend the U.S. debt limit at 1:45 p.m. Eastern. Very short article....

Current Speaker of the House John Boehner pushed through a clean debt limit bill on Tuesday that gives the White House unlimited borrowing power for the next year. Only 28 Republicans - mostly allies of Boehner - voted for the bill while 199 Republicans opposed it. I say current speaker because a revolt by GOP back benchers is a real possibility. Several prominent conservatives like Mark Levin and Sean Hannity have already called for the speaker's head while the Senate Conservative Fund has also urged Boehner's removal. The thinking of the GOP leadership is that fiscal fights have become a...

The scene happened Tuesday morning at the Capitol Hill Club, where House Republicans had gathered for a private breakfast. After listening to a handful of colleagues flatly discuss fundraising strategy for 30 minutes, Boehner stood up, walked past dozens of sleepy, coffee-sipping Republicans and tersely woke up the room with an update. “Listen – we’re going to move forward,” Boehner said. Instead of bringing up the leadership’s plan, which would link a restoration of recently cut military benefits to a debt-ceiling extension, he would push a “clean” bill, averting default more than two weeks before the Treasury Department’s debt-limit deadline.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican leaders in the House of Representatives on Tuesday caved in to demands by President Barack Obama and agreed to advance legislation raising Washington's borrowing authority without conditions.

House Republicans are abandoning their plan to lift the debt limit and restore military pension cuts due to flagging support from the rank and file. The announcement was made Tuesday morning in a private GOP meeting.

(UPI) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Friday urged Congress to raise the federal borrowing limit to "provide certainty to the economy and to the financial markets."In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Lew said the Treasury was implementing extraordinary measures to pay the government's bills as of Friday, with the expiration of a temporary suspension of the statutory debt limit that was part of the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2014 -- a compromise spending bill that led to the end to a government shutdown."Because Congress has not acted to approve normal borrowing authority, Treasury must begin implementing...

(Reuters) - Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives have penciled in a possible vote next week on legislation to raise the debt limit, a sign that they are moving closer to deciding whether to try to attach conditions to any increase. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Friday left a spot open in his weekly House floor schedule for "possible consideration of the legislation related to the debt limit" on Wednesday.A temporary extension of the $17 trillion U.S. debt ceiling expires at midnight on Friday, forcing the U.S. Treasury Department to resort to extraordinary cash management measures to...

House Speaker John A. Boehner scrambled to sell a new debt-ceiling solution to his Republican colleagues on Wednesday, encouraging them to demand a restoration of recently cut military benefits in exchange for a one-year extension of the federal government’s borrowing authority. Though Boehner (R-Ohio) did not formally endorse the idea as his own, he did ask his lieutenants to test it among rank-and-file ­Republicans.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) urged conservative House Republicans on Tuesday to continue pushing GOP leaders to insist on spending reductions as any new agreement to raise the federal borrowing limit, putting him at odds with some conservatives who said earlier that doing so would just amount to “political theater.”“Of course the debt ceiling should be used to enact structural spending reforms to fix the problem, to fix the out of control spending and debt. That’s what all of our constituents expect and it’s what every member of this body tells our constituents we will do. I guarantee you,” Cruz said.The...