Why America has a debt ceiling: 5 questions answered

  Republicans and Democrats are again waging a battle of wills over the U.S. debt ceiling, which is a statutory limit on how much the government can borrow to pay its bills. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says no member of his party will support a bill lifting or suspending the debt limit – even though he says he wants to see it raised – and Democrats are reluctant to do it on their own. At the moment, Democrats hope to do it as part of a must-pass spending bill.

  Congress suspended the debt ceiling in 2019 for two years, ending July 31, 2021. Since then, the U.S. Treasury Department has taken emergency measures that allow it to keep borrowing without an increase in the limit. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that those options will run out in October and that if the U.S. doesn’t allow more borrowing, it faces “catastrophe” – either drastic across-the-board spending cuts or the prospect of an unprecedented default.

  Economist Steve Pressman explains why we have a ceiling – and why he thinks it’s time to abolish it.

Sally Steenland: Women Senators prove collaboration is better than conflict

  Women came to the rescue in Washington last week. A group of female senators crossed party lines and forged a plan to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling. These women spoke the word "compromise" not as an epithet, but as a means of governing. They rolled up their sleeves and found common-ground solutions in order to put Americans back to work and save the global economy.

  In so doing, the 16 Democratic and 4 Republican women in the Senate blasted a hole in the stereotype of women as decorative accessories who chat and men as action heroes who get things done. As Time magazine put it: "Women Are the Only Adults Left in Washington."

Ian M. MacIsaac: Freeze, this is a stickup: hostage negotiations in the fiscal cliff crisis

  "We're nowhere."

  That was House Speaker John Boehner's summation of the fiscal cliff negotiations as of this time last week, in an interview on Fox News Sunday.

  Boehner said that plan proposed by President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to avoid the fiscal cliff, which included an end to Congress's control of the debt ceiling limit along with $1.6 trillion in new revenue, was "a non-serious proposal;" particularly because, as Boehner portrayed it, the proposal contained federal spending that outweighed its proposed budget cuts.