Closing window: Washington's time to resolve the US debt ceiling is running out

With the US Treasury saying it’s exhausted all but $88 billion of its authorized measures to keep the government from running out of borrowing capacity, the window for a resolution of the debt-ceiling standoff is narrowing.

The Treasury said Friday that it had that amount of breathing room left as of May 10 to help pay the government’s bills, down from around $110 billion a week earlier. That means just over a quarter of the $333 billion of authorized measures are still available to keep the government from exhausting its borrowing room under the debt limit. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this month that her department could run out of cash as soon as June 1 and Treasury markets have shifted to price in a default premium for securities maturing around that date. The cost of insuring US debt against non-payment has also soared.

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