WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury, responding to the collapse of talks to rescue CIT Group Inc CIT.N, said on Wednesday that it aimed to maintain a very high threshold for government assistance to individual companies.

"Even during periods of financial stress, we believe that there is a very high threshold for exceptional government assistance to individual companies," a Treasury spokesperson said in a statement.

"We have a comprehensive and aggressive strategy to restore stability to the financial system as a whole so that credit flows to both businesses and consumers and puts us on a path to sustainable growth," the spokesperson said. "As part of that strategy, we have put in place a powerful set of innovative financing mechanisms to help restart the overall credit markets that are critical to growth." (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)