In a Friday morning letter to House Speaker John Boehner and other House and Senate leaders, Lew said that his office will be forced to suspend the issuance of State and Local Government Series securities on Mar. 13 unless the debt limit is raised. 

The U.S.'s top finance official said the U.S. will hit its debt limit on Mar. 16, but would begin taking "extraordinary measures" to finance the government on a temporary basis, according to the U.S. Treasury.

"Accordingly, I respectfully ask Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible," Lew wrote in his letter.

The debt ceiling, which has been raised 74 times in the last five decades, is a perennial political football in Washington. Under President Barack Obama, the limit has been hiked five times, fewer than either of his immediate predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. 

Still, Lew's warning comes as deficit hawks point out the government pulled in record amounts of tax receipts last year. Separately, the budget deficit—while projected to hit its lowest since 2007 this year by the Congressional Budget Office—still hovers around 2.5 percent of gross domestic product.