The Urgency of Lifting the Debt Limit: Yellen Warns of Missed Payments and Global Impact.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the US would not have enough cash to pay all its bills on time beyond early June if Congress does not raise the debt limit. She said that a default would inflict severe damage on the US economy and that she would soon provide Congress with a more precise update about when the nation could default. Yellen dismissed the idea of "prioritizing" certain payments that the government is required to make, noting that government payment systems were devised to pay bills on time, not to decide which ones to pay.