U.S. Congress Enters Crucial Week in Battles Over Budget, Debt Limit
Investors were unnerved by the apparent hardening of stances over the weekend, with European shares falling to a four-month low on Monday and the dollar and oil prices also slipping.
China - the biggest holder of U.S. Treasuries - urged Washington to take decisive steps to avoid a crisis and ensure the safety of Chinese investments.
“The United States is totally clear about China’s concerns about the fiscal cliff,” Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said, in the Chinese government’s first public comment on the October 17 deadline.
“We hope the United States fully understands the lessons of history,” Zhu told reporters in Beijing, referring to the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poors in 2011.
SHUTDOWN, DEBT CEILING ISSUES MERGED
The two issues of the Federal government shutdown and the debt ceiling started out separately in the House but have been merged by the pressure of time.
Conservative Republicans in the House have resisted funding the government for the current fiscal year until they extract some concession from Obama that would delay or defund his signature healthcare law, which launched October 1.
Many of those conservatives want a similar condition placed on raising the debt ceiling, but in his list of debt-ceiling demands Sunday, Boehner did not mention the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.
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