Normally in Washington, the agenda for spring and summer is set by the president’s budget and the priorities of congressional leaders. But this year will be different. House Republicans have proposed an ambitious platform, in the form of the budget produced by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan and passed by the full House last month. But the Democrats who control the Senate and the White House, and who therefore effectively run things, have no discernible policy agenda. What substance there was in the president’s 2012 budget was emptied out by a bizarre speech he delivered last month, setting out completely different goals from those of his initial proposal but offering no specific means to achieve them. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have been unable to agree on any budget outline at all.
Instead, the course of the next few months will be set by a letter Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent to congressional leaders three weeks ago, informing them that the government will likely hit its legal debt limit around August 2—a week before the beginning of Congress’s summer recess. Since neither party can afford to be seen as giving up too early in the fight over raising the debt ceiling, there is every reason to think that the argument will not be settled until the last possible minute. Geithner’s deadline suggests that the period from now until the August recess will be taken up almost exclusively with the debt-ceiling debate.
