Uncle Sam's charge card will be positively on fire in the forth quarter as the Treasury Department gears up to borrow an unprecedented $550 billion between now and year's end, more than double the prior record amount of $244 billion in debt sold in the first quarter of 2008.
In a statement released Monday, the Treasury said that "this
borrowing estimate is $408 billion higher than announced in July 2008.
The increase in borrowing is primarily due to higher outlays related to
economic assistance programs, lower receipts and lower net issuances
of State and Local Government Series securities."
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The pace is expected to slacken, but not by too much, in the first
quarter of 2009, as Treasury expects to borrow $368 billion of
marketable debt between January 2009 and March 2009.
The second half of 2008 has seen the U.S. government selling huge
amounts of Treasury Bills to finance the various rescue packages the
Bush administration has been rolling out since September. During the
July to September 2008 quarter, the Treasury borrowed $530 billion of
marketable debt. -
George White
See Treasury press release
