Lew Says U.S. Ability to Borrow May Run Out by Late February

Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew warned Congress that the U.S. will exhaust its borrowing authority as soon as late February and urged lawmakers to raise the federal debt limit weeks before then.

The Treasury Department estimates that so-called extraordinary measures used to avoid breaching the debt limit “would be able to extend the nation’s borrowing authority only until late February or early March 2014,” Lew said in a letter today to House Speaker John Boehner and other congressional leaders.