Today is the day the U.S. government is expected to reach the $14.3 trillion dollar debt ceiling. Looks like we've got about an 11 week window to escape a default.
On the show, today we had Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., discussing the issue and NBC's Kelly O'Donnell letting us know how close Congress is to striking a deal.
Ezra Klein does a good job of breaking things down this morning.
There's not been much evident progress towards a deal in recent days, though there's been an escalation in Republican demands from the Senate side (McConnell wants Medicare cuts but no tax increases) and a plea from the Obama administration for Democrats to stop adding new demands onto an already overburdened negotiations process. But the outlines of a deal have been relatively obvious for some time: For better or worse, the final deal will be heavily tilted towards spending cuts, and accompanied by some sort of procedural mechanism to make future deficit reduction more likely.
And the WSJ has an informative graphic on what steps the Treasury has to avoid exceeding the debt ceiling. Read more HERE.