Obama Praises Bipartisan 'Gang of Six' Debt Plan

Why suffer from 'problems we've created for ourselves'?

(NEWSER) - All this talk about raising the debt ceiling when the fact is—like almost “every other democratic country”—we shouldn’t have one at all, writes James Surowiecki in the New Yorker . “There’s no debt limit in the Constitution,” and Congress already has a way to control spending. It’s called the budget, and unlike debt ceiling debates, “it doesn’t risk economic chaos.” Indeed, “the only reason we need to lift the debt ceiling is to pay for spending that Congress has already authorized.” More»

...those days are used to hammer out longer-term deal

(NEWSER) - All of the debt ceiling meetings have broken up for the evening, and, surprise, surprise, no breakthrough deal has emerged. But once again, there's hope: The big development of the day looks to be the White House declaration that President Obama would agree to a short-term deal to raise the debt ceiling—a few days, max—to give lawmakers time to hammer out a longer-term deal. The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are giving the shift prominent play and have details. More»

Krugman: It's a 'disaster' for the country, and shows he'll surrender again

(NEWSER) - President Obama caved deeply in a debt deal that made the Republicans big winners, with both Andrew Leonard and Paul Krugman arguing that he "surrendered." Their take:

• “In the end, President Obama had to admit surrender,” writes Andrew Leonard in Salon , detailing “a smashing victory for the Tea Party and a crushing defeat for Democrats.” In Obama’s defense, he “had to choose between an awful deal or an outright catastrophe.” But he made a mistake in trying to sell it as a compromise. "The president said it was not 'the deal I would have preferred.' He should have said it's a bad deal that does not address the pressing needs of the nation," but one that he had no choice but to sign.

But today's the absolute last one—right?

(NEWSER) - Today is, supposedly, the absolute last day for debt limit legislation to be introduced in the House if the US wants to avoid defaulting on Aug. 2. As we wait to see if lawmakers make the deadline, Uri Friedman, writing in in the Atlantic Wire, looks at all the deadlines they've missed so far:

1. May 16: Timothy Geithner originally named this as the date the US would risk default, but when it passed without Congress raising the debt ceiling, the Treasury shuffled some clamshells to postpone the default date to Aug. 2—at which point "the borrowing authority of the United States will be exhausted."
2. June 31: On June 1, John Boehner said that a deal must be made in the next month in order to avoid "rattling investors."

Boehner believes proposal must hit House today

(NEWSER) - We may very well be at zero hour: John Boehner has privately told Republicans that in order to get a debt ceiling measure signed by President Obama by the Aug. 2 deadline, it must be introduced in the House today. But despite the increasing likeliness of a US default, Politico reports that hope for a bipartisan deal has disintegrated. After meeting with the president and Nancy Pelosi last night, Harry Reid accused Boehner of taking a "my-way-or-the-highway approach," and reiterated the fact that his two-part plan —or any short-term plan—is "a non-starter in the Senate and with the president." Politico also notes that Obama, after three weeks of being highly visible, was on the sidelines during this weekend's developments, a potentially risky move this late in the game. More»