FIRST ON FOX: A potential showdown over the U.S. debt limit is projected to hit Capitol Hill by mid-June, a new calculation suggests.
The Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) released a new model Monday that said it is “possible” the U.S. government would exhaust the ability to pay its debts by June 16, 2025.
“The government is projected to run about a $2 trillion deficit next year. And so that means that the spending obligations that Congress and the government have incurred are a lot more than what we’re going to bring in tax revenues,” Matthew Dickerson, director of Budget Policy at EPIC, told Fox News Digital. “To be able to pay the things the government has promised to pay on time, you need to increase the debt limit.”
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EPIC’s analysis projected that “extraordinary measures” that can be invoked by the Treasury Department to avoid national default can carry the U.S. for roughly six more months at most, until a day known as the “X-date.”
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When asked if he was bracing for another 11th-hour agreement, Dickerson pointed out that Congress already has a litany of urgent legislative priorities to start off next year even before debt limit talks.
“It’s going to be a struggle for Congress to be able to deal with this,” he said.
However, those negotiations can also be an ideal opportunity for Republicans to negotiate major deficit reduction ideas into law, EPIC’s paper argued.
“Reaching the debt limit should be a wake-up call and a signal to do something, sound the alarm,” Dickerson said.
The report said debt limit talks “historically helped facilitate the political environment needed for deficit reduction agreements, presenting an opportunity in 2025 to pair necessary debt limit increases with reforms to control spending and promote economic growth.”
