stock exhaust pipe size on a 96 2.4L engine?

The reason that I am asking this is because I really need to remove the catalytic converter on my car because it is bad. I heard that leaving a bad catalytic converter on your car can cause serious engine problems and that doesn't sound too good. For right now I was planning cutting it of and just putting a straight pipe in place of it, but what does the size have to be (2.25 or 2.5) for something that I can just bolt in place. I know that it is illegal to not have a catalytic converter on your car but for right now I think that it needs to go. I do plan putting in a new one further down the road but for right no it just sits out of the budget so a straight pipe in place will do for now. Thanks for any help.