Debt Ceiling | featured news

The likely deadline for Congress to prevent the government's first default will be later than earlier thought, a Washington think tank has found. The Bipartisan Policy Center said Friday that the government probably won't reach the brink of default until early September or early October. It had previously said default would come in July or August.

House Republicans are preparing for another showdown over the debt ceiling this summer. The House Ways and Means Committee passed a bill Wednesday to protect Social Security recipients and investors in Treasury bonds if the government hits the limit of its borrowing authority.

The U.S. House approved, 285-144, a bill to suspend the nation's $16.4 debt ceiling through May 18 to avert a U.S. default on its legal obligations and buy Washington more time to negotiate budget priorities.

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.

Backing down from their hard-line stance, House Republicans said Friday that they would agree to lift the federal government’s statutory borrowing limit for three months, with a requirement that both chambers of Congress pass a budget in that time to clear the way for negotiations on long-term deficit reduction.

As House Republicans gather at a private retreat in Williamsburg, Va., to plot a course to address the next string of fiscal deadlines facing Congress this spring, Rep. Paul Ryan, the former Republican nominee for vice president, told reporters today that conservatives could agree to a short-term increase to the debt limit.

A failure by Congress to raise the debt limit "in a timely manner" could lead to a downgrade of the nation's AAA credit rating, Fitch Ratings said Tuesday.

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.

The Treasury Department will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to get around the debt ceiling. If they did, the Federal Reserve would not accept it. That's the bottom line of the statement that Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, gave me today. "Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit," he said.

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.