Biden administration faces hard deadline and tough choices on debt limit.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and her team may have to take unprecedented steps to avert a global meltdown if debt-limit talks fail. Yellen is signaling that Treasury will have to take on an even more critical and fraught role — sorting out, at President Joe Biden’s direction, which of the government’s bills to pay in the event it doesn’t have the money to cover all its obligations. So-called payment prioritization could allow the U.S. to avoid defaulting on its debt, but it would require policymakers to potentially delay money sent to other individuals and businesses.