The United States has officially hit its debt ceiling, according to the Treasury Department, which is now using short-term bookkeeping tactics to keep the government from defaulting on the amount it has borrowed to cover previous spending. Those tactics could get the government through June, according to news reports.
While a default crisis would not be the same as a full government shutdown, it could still lead to a delay in some federal payments, including military pay, as Stars and Stripes reported, citing interviews with multiple analysts.
“I’ve not seen these kinds of major stressors on the uniformed service community and veteran communities in many years,” said René Campos, senior director of government relations for the Military Officers Association of America. “I think they’re unprecedented.”
Travis Sharp, a Navy reservist and director of defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budget Assessments, said military families are concerned as they watch lawmakers.
“They’ve negotiated solutions before,” Sharp said. “But it’s a lot of brinkmanship, so it might go pretty close to the drop-dead date and make all of us very nervous.”
Army photo by Sgt. Steven Galimore
