(CNN) — The nation will hit its roughly $36 trillion debt limit on Tuesday, when the Treasury Department will start taking extraordinary measures to allow the government to pay its bills, outgoing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a letter to congressional leaders on Friday. The notice comes just three days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.Reaching the cap ramps up pressure on congressional Republicans, but lawmakers have a little time before they must act to avoid a first-ever default, which would likely cause global economic upheaval. The extraordinary measures, which are mainly behind-the-scenes accounting maneuvers, will continue through March 14, Yellen wrote.Although Republicans control Capitol Hill, they remain divided over how to address the debt ceiling. They have several major agenda items they want to push through Congress along party lines, including border security, energy and tax cuts, possibly in one package or two. Plus, lawmakers still must pass a government funding bill for fiscal year 2025, which began October 1. (A temporary spending measure expires on March 14.)A bill to increase or suspend the debt ceiling could be included in one of these packages, though addressing the cap has been a bipartisan effort in recent years.House Speaker Mike Johnson is already running up against resistance from some of his fiscally conservative members, who want to decrease the debt, not increase it. His super-slim majority will make it even more difficult for him to find a compromise — and he may need Democratic support in order to pass an increase to the limit.The issue has already brought to light fissures within the party. In December, Trump demanded that lawmakers address the limit as part of a temporary spending bill. However, the GOP-led package, which included suspending the cap into January 2027, failed amid opposition that included a significant number of Republicans.GOP leaders in the House in December floated an idea to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion as part of a first reconciliation package in 2025. The legislation would also include $2.5 trillion in cuts to net mandatory spending, aimed at satisfying conservative members. But that would buy the caucus only limited time before they face the cap again, experts said.The debt ceiling had been suspended until January 2 as part of the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act, which Congress approved in June 2023 after months of contentious debate between the GOP-led House and Democrats who controlled the Senate and White House. The cap at the time was $31.4 trillion.In a technical quirk, the US didn’t actually hit the limit on January 2 because the debt level was projected to dip that day due to the scheduled redemption of certain securities, Yellen told Congress in late December. At the time, she forecast the cap would be reached between January 14 and January 23.The post US to hit debt ceiling Tuesday, starting Congress’ countdown clock appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.