“Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told House Speaker John Boehner and other congressional leaders Wednesday that Congress must vote to increase the government’s borrowing limit before late February,” NBC’s Tom Curry reports. “As part of the deal last year between President Barack Obama and Congress ending the government shutdown, the debt limit, which is just under $17 trillion, was temporarily suspended through Feb. 7.” More: “One special timing factor, he noted, is that ‘the government experiences large net cash outflows in the month of February, due to tax refunds’ so its cash balance will be lower than it would be at other times.”
National Journal: “Ted Cruz Wants Obama to Focus on Benghazi in State of the Union.”
NBC’s Frank Thorp reports that the House will consider a bill next week that would prohibit federal funds from being used to pay for abortions, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced that news during his speech at the March for Life in Washington on Wednesday.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will deliver a 1:00 pm ET speech at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, in which he’ll argue that Democrats can exploit a weakness in the Tea Party.