Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen issued a fresh plea for Congress to raise the federal debt ceiling on Sunday, arguing a default on U.S. debt would trigger a historic financial crisis.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Yellen said that the crisis triggered by a default would compound the damage from the continuing coronavirus pandemic, roiling markets and plunging the U.S. economy back into recession at the cost of millions of jobs and a lasting hike in interest rates.
“We would emerge from this crisis a permanently weaker nation,” Yellen said, noting that U.S. creditworthiness has been a strategic advantage.
Yellen did not offer a new timeline for a possible default, but described economic damage that would fall on consumers through higher borrowing costs and lower asset prices.
She has said previously that a default could come during October when the Treasury exhausts its cash reserves and extraordinary borrowing capacity under the $28.4 trillion debt limit.
“We can borrow more cheaply than almost any other country, and defaulting would jeopardize this enviable fiscal position. It would also make America a more expensive place to live, as the higher cost of borrowing would fall on consumers,” Yellen wrote. “Mortgage payments, car loans, credit card bills—everything that is purchased with credit would be costlier after default.”
