Plafond de la dette: pas encore?

Juste après les élections... "New figures from the Congressional Budget Office indicate that the government will hit its debt limit before the end of the year — though exactly how long before is still unclear.

CBO predicts that on January 1, 2013, the debt subject to the overall limit will be just shy of $16.8 trillion. But the debt limit itself stands at $16.4 trillion. The Treasury Department can create some breathing space for itself using a series of extraordinary measures — but those only go so far.

“There is a risk that the treasury will hit its $16.4 trillion debt limit before the next presidential inauguration,” emails Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi. “It will be close. I suspect the Treasury will have enough accounting wiggle room to get there, but much depends on whether the economy sticks close to script.”

  One plausible scenario, then, is that Congress will have to address the debt ceiling issue in its November-December lame-duck session. But that’s exactly when it’s expected to address huge issues, like the expiring Bush tax cuts and the automatic spending cuts locked in by the last debt limit deal. The outcomes of all those debates will hang heavily on the results of the election — a clean win for Obama portends a much different resolution than an Obama victory in which the GOP takes the Senate, let alone a GOP sweep."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/cbo-well-hit-the-debt-limit-this-year.php?ref=fpnewsfeed