Debt Ceiling | featured news

Senate Majority Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Sunday night that they had come to an agreement on a deal that would raise the debt limit and reduce the deficit.

British and Japanese officials warned Sunday of disastrous consequences for the global economy if last-minute talks among lawmakers in Washington failed to agree on raising the U.S. borrowing limit and averting a debt default.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the key Republican negotiator, expressed optimism that a $3-trillion deal could be reached to avert a federal default. A Senate procedural vote is scheduled for 1 p.m.

Democrats are going to lose this one. The first stage of the emerging deal doesn’t include revenue, doesn’t include stimulus, and lets Republicans pocket a trillion dollars or more in cuts without offering anything to Democrats in return.

Financial institutions across the country have begun preparing for a worst-case scenario if Congress fails to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, assembling plans to offer customers emergency loans or waive fees if their federal pay or benefits checks do not arrive on time. Navy Federal Credit Union, the largest in the country, said this week it would advance pay to direct-deposit members who are active-duty military or civilian employees of the Defense Department. It also said it would expedite approvals for lines of credit, overdraft programs and higher credit card limits.

As the nation stood Friday on the edge of a historic default and markets sank amid grim economic news and the legislative chaos, President Obama called on both Democrats and Republicans to abandon their favored debt-ceiling plans and come together to find a last-minute deal.

Failure of Republican House leadership to pass a debt-reduction bill gives Democrats the edge, at least for now.

A rising number of Democrats are asking President Obama to take executive action and raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling on his own, but Obama ...

The latest evidence on the economy suggests that the tense standoff between Congress and the Obama administration over raising the debt ceiling is coming at a terrible time — not in a period of robust or even passable growth, but at a time the U.S. economy is barely eking out any expansion at all.

In a televised address to the nation on July 25, 2011, to discuss the pending deadline on the debt ceiling, President Barack Obama made his pitch for a "balanced" approach to reducing the deficit -- one that includes spending cuts as well as revenue increases from tax increases for wealthier Americans. With the debt ceiling issue caught in a political deadlock over how to reduce the deficit, Obama noted that raising the debt ceiling has been a relatively routine exercise for decades. "Understand –- raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money," Obama said.