This isn’t a game anymore.
Treasury Secretary Lew, a man who gives zero fucks, is warning Congress that they need to quit trying to provoke a government shutdown and to pass a funding bill ASAP. If you recall, the last time Congress did this, the market suffered. This go around, following a Fed meeting date on 10/28, the November 5th deadline is especially ominous.
“Over the past ten days, we have received quarterly corporate and individual tax receipts and additional information about the activities of certain large trust funds, including military retirement trust funds,” Lew wrote in his letter to Boehner. “The tax receipts were lower than we previously projected, and the trust fund investments were higher than projected- resulting in a net decrease of resources available to the United States government.”
Lew added, “Based on this new information, we now estimate that Treasury is likely to exhaust its extraordinary measures on or about Thursday, November 5. At that point, we would be left to fund the government with only the cash we have on hand, which we currently forecast to be below $30 billion. This amount would be far short of net expenditures on certain days, which can be as high as $60 billion. Moreover, given certain payments that are due in early to mid-November, we anticipate that our remaining cash would be depleted quickly.”
It’s also worth noting that Lew is pointing out that tax receipts are coming in less than expected. In other words, the economy is slowing.
I am sure the Fed will read this press release and counter it with a speech talking about the glamour and bubble-esque nature of this economy and how it desperately needs an emergency rate hike.
The closer we get to a funding crisis, the more volatile the markets will become.
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