Obama Invites Hill Leaders To Talk Debt Limit
President Barack Obama invited Congressional leaders to the White House to discuss raising the federal debt limit on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The meeting will take place at 5:30pm ET.
The Treasury Department announced Tuesday it was executing final emergency measures before it must raise the debt ceiling on Oct. 17. House Republicans are considering merging negotiations on the debt limit with a continuing resolution to re-open the shuttered government.
Here is what America’s Leaders look like:
People of color. Check. Women. Check. Token (ha!) old white guys. Check.
Yesterday, Eric Cantor tweeted that he was ready to negotiate and had his team in place. This is what Republican Leaders look like:
Old white guys in $4,000 suits. Check.
President Obama wants a clean debt limit increase and a clean Continuing Resolution. The only thing we know for sure is that the Affordable Care Act is not a bargaining chip.
Beyond The Shutdown, There’s A Bigger Battle Brewing
Congress has to raise the limit on the amount of money the federal government is allowed to borrow by Oct. 17. If the debt ceiling is not raised on time, President Obama warns that Washington won’t be able to keep paying its bills.
“It’d be far more dangerous than a government shutdown, as bad as a shutdown is,” Obama said Tuesday. “It would be an economic shutdown.”
No one is exactly sure what would happen if the government suddenly had to make do without a credit card. But experts agree that the fallout could be scary and far-reaching.
While government shutdowns are messy and disruptive, the country has lived through them before. The U.S. government, on the other hand, has never had to go cold turkey on borrowed money.