Congressional Budget Office: Debt limit 'X-date' likely not until mid-August at earliest

Paul M. Krawzak, CQ-Roll Call on Jun 9, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office on Monday extended its estimate of when the debt limit must be raised, stretching its predicted “X-date” range to begin in mid-August and run through the end of September.

That’s when the agency estimates the “extraordinary measures” as well as reductions of the Treasury Department’s emergency cash buffer that are currently being used to allow continued borrowing will be exhausted.

The CBO in March estimated the Treasury’s cash on hand and ability to borrow could be exhausted by Aug. 1. But in its monthly budget review for May, the agency said the past three months of federal taxes collected and spending suggested the X-date would not occur until two weeks later at the earliest.

The new debt limit projection was tucked into the agency’s monthly budget update, which found a nearly $1.4 trillion deficit for fiscal 2025 so far through the end of May. That’s running about $160 billion higher than the previous year’s deficit through the same time period.

While revenue is higher by 6 percent, driven in part by increased tariff revenue, spending outpaced that figure, coming in 8% higher through May. Extra Social Security payments driven by last December’s law boosting benefits for some public sector retirees and higher interest payments on the debt were big contributors to that spending growth.

It’s not clear what impact, if any, the new CBO projection will have on House and Senate Republicans who are trying to complete action by the July Fourth recess on a reconciliation bill that would include at least a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit.

On May 9, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote to lawmakers urging them to raise the debt limit by mid-July. He wrote that based on tax receipts from the April filing season, there is a “reasonable probability” the cash and bookkeeping measures would be exhausted in August while Congress is on recess.

A previous debt limit suspension expired and the cap was reinstated on Jan. 2 at $36.1 trillion. The Treasury Department on Jan. 21 began using the accounting measures that provide space to allow the government to continue to borrow by temporarily suspending investments in the federal employees’ retirement system and other government funds.

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