debt limit

The government says it will temporarily suspend sales of U.S. Treasury securities to state and local governments at noon on Friday, the first step to avoid breaching the nation's borrowing limit.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is telling congressional leaders that the U.S. government will exhaust its borrowing limit as soon as mid-February, earlier than expected.

U.S. Treasury officials said Wednesday that they still expect the government will hit the current debt borrowing limit at the end of this year. But they said they can employ "extraordinary" measures that have been used in the past to keep the government functioning until sometime early next year.

President Barack Obama is delaying his request for another $1.2 trillion increase in the nation's debt limit at the request of congressional leaders.