“America must pay its bills on time and in full,” she told senators Tuesday. “If we do not, we will eviscerate our current recovery.”

However, some Republicans are pointing to a section from the Congressional Budget Office’s Tuesday’s report that stated Treasury could “defer all or part of” the $118 billion the department plans to transfer to the Highway Trust Fund on Dec. 15.

If deferred, the “government would be able to pay its obligations for a few weeks longer than it would if the payments were made in full — until sometime in January.”