Economics
Yellen Warns Lawmakers Default Will Produce ‘Financial Collapse’
- Secretary testifies before House panel now controlled by GOP
- Yellen’s appearance comes as clashes begin over Biden’s budget
Janet Yellen during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on March 10.
Photographer: Al Drago/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned lawmakers that failure to pay US government bills “will produce economic and financial collapse,” and that prioritizing some payments over others “is just default by another name.”
“We should not think that prioritization is the solution to the debt-ceiling issue — prioritization is simply not paying all of the government’s bills when they come due. That is something we have never done since 1789,” she said in the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee Friday.