Treasury Secretary reports that the government will run out of cash a month earlier than expected

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew

(Image credit: Olivier Douliery/Getty Images)

published 2 October 2015

Now that Congress has avoided shutting down the government, another task awaits them: funding it. And, according to a letter that Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew sent to outgoing House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday, Congress is now going to have a lot less to work with in figuring out how exactly they're going to do that.

Lew says that the federal government will be running out of money to pay the bills a month sooner than expected, meaning that Congress will now have to negotiate the debt ceiling ahead of a new Nov. 5 deadline. "Without sufficient cash," Lew wrote in the letter, "it would be impossible for the United States of America to meet all of its obligations for the first time in our history." The Treasury has already been "taking emergency measures since March to avoid breaching the $18.1-trillion debt limit," the Daily Intelligencer reports.