U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen attends congressional hearing and urges to raise debt ceiling as soon as possible

　　China News Agency, Washington, March 10 (Reporter Sha Hanting) U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen attended the hearing of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives on the 10th local time.

She urged Congress to raise the government debt ceiling as soon as possible, otherwise it will bring "economic disaster."

　　Yellen said at the hearing that day that Congress needs to "unconditionally" raise the federal government's debt ceiling, otherwise if there is a debt default, it will bring "economic and financial disaster."

Yellen urged all members of Congress to come together and "don't wait until the last minute" to tackle the debt ceiling.

Data map: Yellen.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Deng Min

　　Regarding this issue, some Republican lawmakers proposed that existing cash resources can be used to repay certain loans first.

In this regard, Yellen said that the proposal means that the government cannot pay all due loans. Such a thing has never happened since 1789. "This is not a solution to the debt ceiling problem."

　　The U.S. federal government debt reached the statutory debt limit of $31.4 trillion on January 19.

The U.S. Treasury Department began taking extraordinary measures on January 19 to avoid a default on government debt.

Yellen previously said the extraordinary measures would help the federal government meet its obligations until early June.

　　The U.S. Congressional Budget Office released a report on February 15 saying that if Congress does not resolve the debt ceiling issue in time, the federal government will default on its debt between July and September this year.

　　On the same day, the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation stated that Silicon Valley Bank had been shut down by the California state regulator due to insolvency and taken over by the company.

Silicon Valley Bank became the largest U.S. bank to fail after the 2008 financial crisis.

　　According to US media reports, after the hearing, Yellen met with officials from the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to discuss the Silicon Valley Bank issue.

　　The Ministry of Finance issued a statement on the same day saying that Yellen believes that the banking regulators can take appropriate measures to deal with the incident, the banking system is still resilient, and the regulators can effectively deal with similar incidents.

(over)