Debt Ceiling

Congress has traditionally limited the size of the federal debt by establishing ceilings on the amount of Treasury securities than can be outstanding. During the past 50 years, Congress has enacted about 60 temporary and permanent increases in the debt ceiling. On August 10, 1993, Congress raised the debt ceiling to $4.9 trillion. This limit was reached in the fall of 1995, but was not raised until the following March, when it was set at $5.5 trillion. The intervening period, when the Secretary of the Treasury announced a debt issuance suspension period, became known as the 1995-1996 debt ceiling crisis. Treasury took several measures during the period to raise funds to meet federal obligations without exceeding the debt ceiling. This report (1) discusses the chronology of these actions and (2) provides a financial and legal analysis of them.

GAO found that: (1) during the 1995-1996 debt ceiling crisis, Treasury followed normal investment and redemption procedures for 12 of the 15 major government trust funds; (2) Treasury suspended normal investments and redemptions for the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Trust, Government Securities Investment (G-fund), and Exchange Stabilization Funds and took other actions to stay within the debt ceiling; (3) these actions were proper and consistent with the Secretary of the Treasury's legal authority; (4) as required, the Secretary of the Treasury determined in November 1995 that a debt issuance suspension period existed prior to exercising his authority; (5) Treasury redeemed $46 billion in Civil Service fund securities in November 1995 and February 1996 and suspended investment of $14 billion in fund receipts in December 1995; (6) Treasury exchanged about $8.6 billion in Civil Service fund securities for Federal Financing Bank (FFB) securities, which FFB then used to repay borrowings from the Treasury; (7) Treasury suspended some investments and reinvestments of G-fund receipts and maturing securities during the crisis; (8) on several occasions, Treasury did not reinvest some of the maturing securities held by the Exchange Stabilization Fund; (9) in March 1996, Treasury issued some securities that were temporarily exempt from the debt ceiling, which allowed it to pay $29 billion in social security benefits and invest $58.2 billion in fund receipts and maturing securities; (10) although the Treasury did not technically exceed the debt ceiling during the crisis, the government incurred about $138.9 billion in additional debt that normally would have been subject to the ceiling; (11) several Treasury actions resulted in interest losses to certain government trust funds; and (12) Congress raised the debt ceiling to $5.5 billion at the end of March 1996, and Treasury fully restored the Civil Service fund's and the G-fund's interest losses by June 1996, but it could not restore the Stabilization fund's interest loss without special legislation.