While I get more cynical about politics every year, I keep concluding that I'm not cynical enough. It's happened again.

Congress could long see two deadlines looming ahead: a partial government shutdown on Oct. 1 if no budget was passed, and a potentially cataclysmic collision with the national debt ceiling if that limit wasn't raised in time. I'll get to the economics shortly, but first let's compare the political degrees of difficulty. The budget deadline looked easy; the debt ceiling looked hard.

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