July 21, 2011

Washington, D.C. - With less than two weeks to go until the United States reaches its debt limit, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) has released a clock to countdown the time remaining ahead of the August 2 deadline. The clock, featured prominently on BPC’s homepage, includes the days, hours, minutes, and seconds left before the Treasury Department would be forced to prioritize spending if no deal is reached.

Visitors to BPC’s website can easily use the clock’s embeddable code to add the widget to their own site or blog. Social media links are also provided, which allow Facebook and Twitter users to send the latest clock reading to their followers. View and share the clock here.

BPC’s Debt Limit Analysis found that 44 percent of U.S. government bills would go unpaid if the federal government fails to raise the debt ceiling by the August 2 deadline. The analysis also shows that an uncertain economic environment would ensue if Treasury restrains spending to remain under the debt limit.

Bloomberg Government, PBS NewsHour, and The Washington Post have published interactive budget tools based on BPC’s analysis. The tools display the estimated $306.7 billion in payment obligations for August 2011 and enable users to choose which programs to pay with available funds, an estimated $172.4 billion in revenue for the month. Try the tools here.

More information about BPC’s Debt Reduction Task Force is available here.

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Debt Reduction Task Force, Economic Policy Project