Treasury head presses House to raise fed debt limit

WASHINGTON -- Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill urged the House on Sunday to follow the Senate's lead and raise the federal debt limit to ensure that the government won't run out of borrowing room this week.

"We need the House of Representatives to come together in a bipartisan, nonpartisan way and do the thing that's necessary so we can not have this shadow over our ability to pay our fair and true debts," O'Neill said on ABC's "This Week."

"They need to do it, without doubt, and I can't believe they're going to fail the country."

The Bush administration says congressional action is needed on the debt limit by Friday, when the government must credit an interest payment of $67 billion to Social Security and other trust funds.

"We will lift it when ... we have the votes to lift it," House Speaker Dennis Hastert said. "Absent that, we will lift if we are in a dire situation."

The Senate approved a $450 billion increase in the debit limit on June 11. That would be enough to carry the government to December, after November's elections for control of Congress, or beyond.

But facing nearly unanimous Democratic opposition, House GOP leaders say they lack the votes to increase the ceiling. Democrats blame the need to raise the limit, the first increase in five years, on President Bush's 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut and say they will not bail out the GOP.

"I've got a lot of confidence that the Congress is not going to fail us as an institution," O'Neill said. "They need to raise the debt ceiling. They don't really have a choice. They've already voted the money that's being spent that is pushing us up against the debt ceiling."