Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday said June 1 remains a “hard deadline” for raising the federal debt limit.
All eyes are on the US debt ceiling right now, and there might be some good news ahead.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has previously said the “X-date,” or the date when the US can no longer pay its bills and risks a default, is June 1.
But the actual deadline could be a week later than June 1, Alec Phillips, Goldman Sachs’ chief political economist, told Bloomberg TV on Friday.
“Our guess right now is that the real deadline is probably more like June 8th, 9th, that’s when they’re at sort of greatest risk,” Phillips said.
Phillips did not explain the X-date calculation in the interview. But these forecasts could vary because these calculations depend on the amount of taxes and other revenue the US government collects versus how much it spends.
While that may buy the US more time to negotiate a deal over raising the debt ceiling, it’s still better to do it sooner or later, Phillips added.
“The reality is that Congress has to do this at some point very soon, and they should just go ahead and do it,” Phillips said.
