By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON – It may be even more difficult than it appears for Congress to reach a broad deal to raise America’s borrowing limit and slash spending by Aug. 2. Maybe all but impossible.
Even if quarreling lawmakers can somehow agree this month, it is doubtful that Congress can write it up in binding fashion and pass it by one month from Saturday. That’s when, the Treasury Department declared anew on Friday, the government will start running short of money to pay the nation’s bills.
Congress could end up having to vote at least twice on the political poisonous issue of raising the debt ceiling, now $14.3 trillion, to avoid a first-ever government default. The first vote would be on an interim raise, possibly in the tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars, to give Congress time to wrap up a grand bargain allowing the government to go trillions of dollars deeper into debt in exchange for spending cuts and possibly higher taxes totaling an equal amount.