Lawmakers in the 118th Congress now face a clash in the House of Representatives that could bring the American economy to the brink of crisis — the fight over raising the debt ceiling.

In a letter sent to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the United States government will reach its debt limit of about $31.4 trillion, today — on Thursday Jan 19… after that, the Treasury Department will have to start taking QUOTE: “extraordinary measures” to prevent the United States from defaulting, but those measures will be exhausted by early June.

House Republicans are using their new majority and the threat of the debt default to leverage the Biden Administration and Democrats to make deep spending cuts, but Democrats have said they refuse to negotiate when it comes to raising the debt ceiling. 

The debt ceiling is the government’s borrowing limit to pay for the nation’s existing bills. And if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, and the country defaults on payments, experts warn that it would be globally catastrophic.

For more on this we talk with Jeff Stein, White House economics reporter for the Washington Post.