WASHINGTON — The government has maxed out its credit card.
The United States reached its $14.3 trillion limit on federal borrowing Monday, leaving Congress 11 weeks to raise the threshold or risk a financial panic or another recession.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner formally notified Congress that the government would halt its investments in two federal pension plans so it won’t exceed the borrowing limit.
Geithner said the government could get by with bookkeeping maneuvers like that through Aug. 2. After that, the government could default on its debt for the first time, threatening the national credit rating and the dollar.
Geithner sent Congress a letter saying he would be unable to make the pension investments in full. He urged Congress to raise the debt limit “in order to protect the full faith and credit of the United States and avoid catastrophic economic consequences for citizens.”
Republican leaders in the House have said they won’t raise the debt limit unless the Obama administration first agrees to big spending cuts or to steps to lower the debt over the long run.
House Speaker John Boehner repeated the pledge in a statement Monday. The statement did not address Geithner’s warning about what would happen if the limit were not raised.
Oil drops below $98; pump prices fall over weekend
Oil prices dropped Monday, a good sign for drivers who are finally seeing a little relief at the gas pump.
The average price for a gallon of regular fell 3 cents over the week to $3.955 nationally. That’s still nearly 14 cents more than it was a month ago, according to AAA, Wright Express and the Oil Price Information Service.
With oil futures and gasoline futures dropping Monday as investors returned their attention to weakening demand for gasoline in the U.S., analysts say prices could fall as much as a quarter or more by Memorial Day.
For now, motorists in about two dozen states are paying above the national average. In 13 states the pump price tops $4 a gallon.
Ohio home burns down during bedbugs treatment
CINCINNATI — Fire officials in Cincinnati say a two-family home was destroyed when a heater being used to kill bedbugs set a carpet on fire.
The house was being treated Sunday by an exterminator who says he gets rid of the pests by raising a home’s temperature to 135 degrees using propane heaters. Residents are told to leave and remove anything flammable.
Cincinnati Fire District Chief Glenn Coleman says the carpet was ignited by one of six heaters inside the home. The fire went undetected until a neighbor saw smoke pouring from the house.
The exterminator, Richard Tyree, blames an equipment malfunction for the fire.
Japanese in expanded nuclear zone leave homes
TOKYO — Japan said Monday it will stabilize and shut down its stricken nuclear power plant in six to nine months, as planned, as residents of two more towns around it evacuated amid concerns about accumulated radiation.
The government’s timeline for stabilizing the plant was called into question last week after new data showed that the damage to one reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex was worse than expected. That assessment also prompted the government to acknowledge that the reactor’s fuel rods had mostly melted soon after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant’s cooling system.
Until all the reactors are safely shut down, they continue to leak radiation, though in much smaller amounts than in the early days of the disaster. Still, the sheer volume of contaminants spewed from the plant — and their buildup in places outside the 12-mile evacuation zone — persuaded the government to order residents to leave more towns in late April. Some of those evacuations began this weekend.
In a rare bit of good news, authorities said Monday that their original timeline for stabilizing the reactors is achievable because the temperature inside the Unit 1 reactor core has fallen to nearly 212 degrees Fahrenheit, a level considered safe and close to a cold shutdown.