Dear Secretary Geithner:
President Obama, today, certified that the debt subject to limit is within $100 billion of the debt limit and that further borrowing is requested. According to the Jan. 10, 2012 Daily Treasury Statement, the amount of debt subject to the limit was $25 million below the statutory debt limit of $15.194 trillion. This suggests that Treasury is now, or will in the near future, resort to “extraordinary" measures to ensure that total public debt subject to the limit remains at or below the statutory debt limit.
Please provide me with information about your intended use of extraordinary measures to ensure that debt remains at or below the limit and that Treasury will have sufficient operating cash to meet all due obligations in the near future.
Please also provide me with Treasury obligations over the next 30 days to the Social Security Trust Funds, including reimbursement obligations required under conditions of the payroll tax holiday, along with plans by Treasury to make certain that there will be no threats to timely payments by Treasury to Social Security beneficiaries, the Social Security Trust Funds, and our troops.
Sincerely,
ORRIN G. HATCH
