The United States is set to run out of borrowing authority in mid-October, leaving the government at a high risk of not being able to pay for Social Security checks, military salaries and other operations, the White House said Monday.
The announcement, which comes at the early end of what many in Washington were anticipating, creates a new crisis point in the nation's protracted fight over the size and role of government.
Republicans are demanding significant new spending cuts in exchange for increasing the nation's $16.7 trillion debt limit, with some GOP lawmakers insisting on a delay or the scrapping of President Barack Obama's signature health care law.