Legislative Background
Recent Action on Raising the Debt Limit
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the U.S. Government is on track to run annual budget deficits of more than $500 billion throughout the period 2010 to 2019. CBO also projects that borrowing to fill the anticipated gap between revenue and spending may cause the national debt, when measured as a percentage of gross domestic product, to more than double, to 68 percent by Fiscal Year 2019. In August 2009, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked Congress to raise the $12.1 trillion debt limit by mid-October, saying that the national debt was fast approaching that ceiling. Congress had last raised…
