Jack Lew Explains The Default Threat Level

It looks like Ted Cruz was not the only pol making headlines this morning on CNN’s “State of the Union”. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew gave the nation another reason to be angry with stubborn House “Tea Party” Republicans as he laid out a stark warning to the nation over the debt limit:

[Lew] warned that the nation will default unless Congress raises its $16.7 trillion debt ceiling by Oct. 17.

“If the United States government, for the first time in its history, chooses not to pay its bills on time, we will be in default. … There is no option that prevents us from being in default if we don’t have enough cash to pay our bills.”

According to Lew, the government has about $30 billion in cash, which is not a “responsible amount of cash to run the government on.”

“I’m telling you that on the 17th, we run out of our ability to borrow, and Congress is playing with fire,” Lew said.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.