Captioning sponsored by wpbt this is n. B. R. Tom good evening. Im tom hudson. With the fiscal cliff in the rear view mirror, raising the debt ceiling is washingtons next big drama. We look at why its so important. Susie im susie gharib. That drama, could have a new cast member, were learning the president will nominate jacob lew as his next treasury secretary. Tom and with its reputation already on the ropes, a. I. G. , the big bailedout insurer, decides against suing uncle sam. Susie th and more tonight on n. B. R. tom there could soon be a new signature on the dollar bill, Jacob Jack Lew is said to be the president s pick to replace treasury secretary timothy geithner. That nomination is expected tomorrow. Should he be confirmed by the senate, one of lews first challenges will be dealing with the rapidly approaching debt ceiling. Darren gersh reports. Reporter assuming he wins senate confirmation, Jacob Jack Lew will take over a treasury that is rapidly running out of cash. The fede
So secretary lew would have to make a decision. He could recommend the president continue business as usual ignoring the debt limit, borrowing money and paying the bills. As justification, lew could say the president had to choose between conflicting Laws Congress has passed requiring him to spend money and not spend it at the same time. At that point, i assume someone who would claim to be an injured party would bring suit and the federal government, if you can imagine this and the congress would find themselves before the Supreme Court arguing under what circumstances the debt of the United States should be paid or could be paid. It gets into really nasty stuff. Reporter but veterans of washingtons budget battles say the rhetoric jack lew will face will be much nastier than the ultimate outcome. The debt ceiling is going to be an ugly fight, perhaps as ugly or even uglier than what we went through at the end of last year, but the real fight is not over the debt ceiling, the real figh
Employee pay, is less clear. So secretary lew would have to make a decision. He could recommend the president continue business as usual ignoring the debt limit, borrowing money and paying the bills. As justification, lew could say the president had to choose between conflicting Laws Congress has passed requiring him to spend money and not spend it at the same time. At that point, i assume someone who would claim to be an injured party would bring suit and the federal government, if you can imagine this and the congress would find themselves before the Supreme Court arguing under what circumstances the debt of the United States should be paid or could be paid. It gets into really nasty stuff. Reporter but veterans of washingtons budget battles say the rhetoric jack lew will face will be much nastier than the ultimate outcome. The debt ceiling is going to be an ugly fight, perhaps as ugly or even uglier than what we went through at the end of last year, but the real fight is not over th
Senate confirmation, Jacob Jack Lew will take over a treasury that is rapidly running out of cash. The federal government has already hit the debt ceiling. And the only way the government can pay its bills is by using accounting gimmicks to move money around. Those tricks will only get the government through midfebruary. At that point lew might have to take the unprecedented step of deciding he has the Legal Authority to pick and choose which bills the feds will pay. Even if it were clear that the treasury secretary could do that, pick and choose, the ability, the real ability to reprogram all of the software in treasurys computers which connect to all of the Computer Software in the various agencies is not something that can be done in ten minutes or ten days or ten weeks. So you have the right to do it but you dont have the ability to do it. Reporter the treasury uses a separate Computer System to make Interest Payments on the federal debt so it is possible investors would get what t
economists welcomed the numbers, but say there s one thing that will get consumers to spend more jobs. relying on it which is relying on how much you need to invest, how much they will lead to higher. we thought the economy sold and would be bad for income growth and consumer spending fall back. susie: one retailer nailing it home depot. the home improvement chain posted better than expected earnings today, underscoring the recent strength we ve seen in the housing market. profits rose 12% in the second quarter. it earned more than $1 per share, four cents more than analyst estimates. home depot said today it s more optimistic about the housing recovery, and it s seeing signs of stabilization. that s why it raised its earnings outlook for this year. retailers are now counting on back-to-school spending to keep up the momentum. spending by families with students high school age and younger is expected to grow double digits to over $53 billion. as we continue our look at