Meet Dave Lebryk, the man in charge of America’s debt crisis

One thing is certain, Dave Lebryk is indeed living his quarter of an hour of fame. Proof, The Washington Post devotes a long portrait to him. He describes the role of this long-time employee of the US Treasury Department who works closely with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as the 1^is June beyond which, without an agreement on raising the debt ceiling, the United States could no longer repay its loans.

If the daily newspaper of the American federal capital takes a close interest in this employee who began his career at the American Treasury in 1989, it is because he is the one who somehow holds the cords of the American debt.

It is indeed charged, as Undersecretary of the Budget, the highest official in the Department of Finance, to provide the Secretary of the Treasury with financial estimates which are then forwarded to the United States Congress “to announce such and such a deadline by which the country will have exhausted its funds”, explain it Washington Post.

Preventing a global financial crisis

Dave Lebryk so play “a crucial role in coordinating and evaluating the amounts that the Treasury must borrow to finance public authorities. His team also drafts and manages the ‘extraordinary measures’ that the Treasury has been implementing since January to delay a default as much as possible. note the diary.

As summarized by a former member of the Biden government, Mark Mazur, in the columns of the daily newspaper of the American federal capital, “He’s the one who keeps the country’s account books, it’s a bit like being its financial director”.

Congress defines the maximum legal amount of loans that the executive can contract, ie 31,400 billion dollars (29,100 billion euros) currently. Since the country’s expenditures regularly exceed its revenues, the debt ceiling must be raised in order to avoid a default in the United States which, “according to many economists, would cause a global financial crisis”, warn him Washington Post.

If the negotiation fails and Congress does not raise this ceiling in time, “Dave Lebryk will be part of the decisions relating to the organization of the deadlines that the State can still honor. The Ministry of Finance would then be in an unprecedented situation, that of determining which payments to make. He would have to choose, for example, between old-age allowances for seniors and food vouchers for low-income families.”

“On that day he will find himself immersed in unknown land”, concludes Mark Mazur – just like the United States.