Barack Obama, Debt Ceiling | featured news

The White House says a House Republican bill to extend the government's borrowing authority for three months still faces concerns in Congress but press secretary Jay Carney says that if it reaches President Barack Obama's desk, "he would not stand in the way of the bill becoming law.

President Barack Obama demanded Monday that Congress raise the federal debt limit quickly, warning that "Social Security benefits and veterans' checks will be delayed if they don't," and cautioning Republicans not to insist on concessions in exchange.

Days after one high-stakes standoff over finances was resolved, the two sides are getting ready for another as Congress prepares to address the nation’s borrowing limit.

President Obama and John Boehner have very different recollections of a tense phone call during the 2011 dispute over the debt ceiling, according to Bob Woodward's new book. They do agree that Obama called Boehner to say he would never sign an agreement that would force a reprise of the debt-ceiling debate before the 2012 election, according to the book The Price of Politics, to be released Tuesday.

Despite support from virtually all Republicans, the Senate blocked an attempt to deny President Obama an increase in the debt ceiling, ensuring that the administration has the funds to pay the nation’s bills through the November election.

President Barack Obama has agreed to delay submitting a debt ceiling increase request to allow lawmakers time to consider it while they are in session, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Friday.

Liberals argue that he caved on the debt ceiling. Unions are upset over his handling of unemployment and labor issues. Hispanics brought the immigration debate directly to his campaign doorstep....

The president is the most visible symbol of what voters see as a badly dysfunctional government. Some Democrats say he could have negotiated better. Though he succeeded in staving off a historic default, President Obama emerges from the debt talks in a weakened political position with limited influence over a divided Congress.

The Senate gave final approval Tuesday to legislation to raise the nation's debt limit by $2.4 trillion while cutting federal deficits, sending President Obama a hard-fought bipartisan package he was expected to swiftly sign into law.

The story is that as Mark Twain and novelist William Dean Howells stepped outside one morning, a downpour began and Howells asked Twain, “Do you think it will stop?” Twain answered, “It always has.” The debt-ceiling impasse has, as things generally do, ended, and a post-mortem validates conservatives’ portrayal of Barack Obama and their dismay about the dangers and incompetence of liberalism’s legacy, the regulatory state.