“Congress will have to raise the Treasury Department’s $16.4 trillion borrowing limit by late winter, and Republicans see the debate as their best opportunity to extract spending cuts out of the White House. That’s why they effectively conceded the tax rate battle to President Barack Obama,” Politico wrote. “So while popular attention has been fixed on the fiscal cliff’s tax hikes and spending cuts — which economists said could lead to a recession — it’s the debt ceiling debate that is keeping investors awake at night, and that could tarnish the United States’ sterling reputation among creditors.” “Of all the so-called cliffs, only the debt ceiling is a real cliff because once you go off it you will plunge to your death,’ said Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst at Guggenheim Securities. ‘All of the other cliffs can be fixed retroactively, but once you default on the debt there is no taking that back.”
07
Jan 2013
