But the White House ruled out the option on Thursday, ending days of Washington debate about whether this obscure legal authority might provide a way out for Obama – at least from one half of Republicans' fiscal pincer movement.
For years, progressives' critique of the fiscal hawk movement ― which Fix the Debt's founders Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson as well as funder Pete Peterson sit at the center of ― has centered on the argument that all this worrying about the debt is a stalking horse to cut social programs and taxes for the rich.
In short, there are several conceptual difficulties in separating the cyclical component of fiscal policy from structural movements which requires strong assumptions on potential output and cyclical elasticities of different fiscal variables.
Several factors will likely influence investors' perception about sovereign riska country's debt financing ability, its status as a "safe haven" relative to other developed economies, politicians' commitment to undertake fiscal reforms, exchange rate movements, and the debt maturity structure.
But there isn't even a hint of significant movement on fiscal policy.
Attendees included representatives from conservative coalitions, Christian groups, social conservatives, backers of the Tea Party movement and fiscal conservative groups, said a person with knowledge of the meeting.
The tea-party movement is pretty fractious, and many of them are pro-life and all the rest of it, but the core principles of the movement are: fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets.
The group at the meeting included representatives from conservative coalitions, Christian groups, social conservatives, backers of the Tea Party movement and fiscal conservative groups, said a person close to the meeting.
Mr. Geithner tried to depict the United States as playing a major role in global economic "rebalancing" -- shorthand for greater domestic consumption in China and movement toward fiscal restraint in the United States and Europe.
NEW YORK TIMES Occupy Wall Street's Money Headaches | Having raised more than $500,000 in donations in New York alone, the Occupy Wall Street protesters must now make decisions about how to become a nonprofit entity, how to deal with credit card companies withholding donations and how to choose a bank that fits the movement's fiscal philosophy, Reuters reports.
