Never saw this one coming:
President Barack Obama says the nation's debt limit won't be raised without a compromise on spending cuts. But he said some questions about where the government trims its operations will have to be left for after the 2012 presidential election.
It's worth repeating this: the deficit for this year got larger because of policies demanded by Republicans. Obama wanted to cut taxes this year, but Republicans wanted to cut them even more, so Obama gave in. As a result, the deficit is higher. Now Republicans get to use this result to push policy even further in their direction and blame Obama for it. He could have negotiated a raise in the debt ceiling as the price for the debt-increasing tax cuts, but he didn't do even that.