Debt ceiling fight

The country's legal debt limit will need to be raised again -- and soon. The Senate will debate just how high tomorrow. The increase is likely to be more than $1 trillion and could be as high as $1.8 trillion. The Democratic goal is to boost the limit enough so that the issue doesn't need to be revisited before the November mid-term elections this year. The debate follows on the heels of an 11th hour short-term increase passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve. That vote raised the ceiling by $290 billion to $12.394 trillion -- enough to cover Treasury's borrowing needs through mid-February.

Democratic leaders could only get support for a short-term boost because a bipartisan group of Senate fiscal hawks have said they would not vote through a long-term increase until lawmakers adopt a "credible process" to curb the growth in U.S. debt. Amendments are expected to be introduced that attempt to force Congress to be more fiscally responsible. Key among them is a proposal to create a bipartisan fiscal commission from Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and the budget committee's top ranking Republican, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. The commission would make recommendations to Congress for how to rein in runaway spending growth, which threatens to overwhelm the federal budget. Two main causes are growing unfunded entitlement obligations and interest that will be owed on the nation's debt.