US risks default as soon as August without action on debt ceiling, CBO estimates

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government will risk defaulting on some of its $36.6 trillion in debt as soon as August unless Congress acts to raise the nation's debt ceiling, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office forecast on Wednesday.

The CBO's forecast of the so-called "X-date" when the Treasury Department would no longer be able to cover its obligations follows an estimate by the Bipartisan Policy Center on Monday that the U.S. could face the risk of default sometime between mid-July and early October.

The CBO said the date would "probably" come in August or September.

Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have not said when they intend to advance legislation to raise Congress's self-imposed debt limit.

Lawmakers have repeatedly taken negotiations over raising the government's borrowing limit to the last minute, a trend that has rattled financial markets and led the major credit agencies to lower their ratings on the federal government's creditworthiness.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone, Jamie Freed and Makini Brice)