Treasury to Disclose Auction Plans

The federal government will announce its plans Tuesday for next week’s auctions of bills and notes, Treasury officials said Friday after Congress increased the government’s borrowing limit to $7.38 trillion.

The announcements, originally set for Thursday this week, had been delayed pending a vote in the Senate. The Treasury plans to sell bills maturing in four weeks, three months and six months next week, as well as notes maturing in two years.

The government also will announce plans Tuesday for the sale of a cash-management bill. All auction plans will be disclosed at 6 a.m. PDT.

All the securities will settle on their regularly scheduled dates, the Treasury said. The government also will resume issuance June 2 of its State and Local Government Series securities, which had been suspended while Congress debated the debt limit. Orders for so-called SLUGs will be accepted again Tuesday.

U.S. debt subject to the ceiling had hovered at the legal limit of $6.4 trillion since Feb. 20, forcing the Treasury to shuffle funds among government accounts and use revenue brought in by the April 15 tax-filing deadline to prevent a default.

The U.S. needs to borrow more money to finance a growing budget deficit, projected by the White House and the Congressional Budget Office to exceed $300 billion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, a record. Citigroup Inc. estimates that the deficit may be as much as $500 billion.