Debt Limit

The rules adopted by House GOP leaders in recent years are leaving Speaker John Boehner little room to maneuver. To reach an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff, he may have to break at least one of them, analysts say.

When talks fell part in July 2011, "I was pretty angry," the president tells Bob Woodward. The Washington Post journalist's latest book is coming out next week.

On today's Planet Money: The legend of the national debt. Where the debt came from, what happened the one time we paid it all off, and who came up with the whole debt-ceiling idea in the first place.

It was just a year ago that the House rejected a deal with President Obama and threatened to allow the U.S. to default on debt obligations coming due. The Tea Party refusal to raise the debt ceiling led to a downgrade in U.S. credit and a selloff in the markets. NPR's David Welna reports on what's changed since then and what hasn't.

Wall Street Journal economics writer David Wessel's new book, Red Ink, lays out in unsparing terms the way the U.S. government spends money, who pays what in taxes, and why politicians can't seem to agree on ways to reduce the potentially catastrophic deficit.

A year ago at this time, Congress was battling over whether to raise the debt ceiling. They tied their own hands, saying they would come up with a solution or massive cuts would set in automatically. Then nothing happened. And the chances of anything changing before the election are slim to none.

The Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of the year, along with the payroll tax break; the nation's borrowing authority bumps against its limit; and huge mandatory spending cuts — half targeting defense — are set to kick in. All this could trigger another recession, but Congress is unlikely to do much about it until after November's election.

In the past week, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have begun a new round of sparring over the U.S. debt ceiling. It's part of a number of problems involving debt, taxes and spending that are all slated to come to a head in early 2013. And solutions aren't likely before Election Day.

The descriptions of the White House lunch meeting from those on the opposing red and blue teams made it sound like yet another meeting featuring the nation's top policymakers that you could have accurately scripted beforehand.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned on Tuesday that the U.S. will likely hit its debt limit sometime before the end of the year. At the same event in Washington, House Speaker John Boehner promised that any increase in the nation's debt ceiling would have to be accompanied by corresponding budget reductions. .