House Speaker John Boehner disagrees.
Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King says the United States can go "indefinitely" without breaching the nation's debt ceiling and defaulting on its debt obligations. King made the comments while speaking with radio host Tyler Cralle earlier in the week:
"The money masterminds decided we would hit that date (the debt ceiling) sometime in about July. And we timed somethings to have that debt ceiling debate in July, well it didn't come, because the Treasury was using what they call extraordinary measures," King said. "Which means they tapped into every account they possibly could, they delayed the payments that they could in other areas. And we rolled this debt ceiling from what was hitting a wall, default they call it, in July, into all the way over now they say it's October 17th. Well we shouldn't accept that as the date beyond which we can't go without what they call default, we can go a long long time. We can go indefinitely without hitting default. So I don't think it's really going to get, the continuing resolution is going to get into default, if we define these things correctly. And it troubles me a little bit that I see our House leadership use the language of default on the debt ceiling."
Here's the video of King's comments.
Rep. King cites that the Treasury Department used "extraordinary" measures to avoid default projections in July. In a letter to Congress in May, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that these extraordinary measures will not be exhausted "until after labor day."
