As we’ve been saying for days, and as financial services giant UBS told us yesterday, the U.S. Treasury actually has enough funds on hand to cover debt obligations for an extra week. Today, the New York Times recognizes as much.

Thanks to an inflow of tax payments and maneuvering by the Treasury Department, the government can probably continue to pay all of its bills for several days after Aug. 2, providing potentially critical breathing room for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, according to estimates by several Wall Street banks and a Washington research organization.

The Times concludes the real deadline is August 10th — 15 days from now. In other words, the real deadline is actually a half-month from now.

The paper also notes that the Obama Administration has previously lied about the deadline, insisting it’s August 2nd as recently as today.

President Obama has described Aug. 2 as a “hard deadline” for Congress to increase the maximum amount that the government is allowed to borrow.

“We have to do it by next Tuesday, Aug. 2, or else we won’t be able to pay all of our bills,” Mr. Obama told the nation in his speech on Monday night.

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, restated that position on Tuesday.

“That’s not a guess. That’s not a political opinion,” Mr. Carney said. “It is the judgment of career analysts at the Treasury Department. We give up our borrowing authority without action by Congress. And the result of that risks default for the United States for the first time in our history.”

So August 2nd is a hard deadline after which we’ll default. Except that it’s not and we won’t. It seems that the White House’s claims actually are political opinions — not the result of analysis by the Treasury Department’s officials.

Think of it this way: The limits on our credit card do max-out on August 2nd. But we still have money in the federal bank account and wallet. Enough to pay all of our bills another week after the credit limit. And we’re still days from that limit.

Bottom line: There’s plenty of time for Congress to reach and pass an agreement. So everyone chill the heck out.