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WASHINGTON (AP) — The debt showdown isn’t just the dominant issue
in Washington this summer – it’s virtually the only one getting any
attention in the nation’s capital.
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From the White House to Congress, the negotiations over raising the
U.S. debt limit have overshadowed or halted work on everything from
job creation to the military conflict in Libya to education reform.
And the debt debate has hamstrung President Barack Obama’s ability
to hit the road to campaign and raise money for his re-election
bid.
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The frenetic pace of Washington often means what is news one day
can fade to the background the next. But rarely does a singular
issue suck up so much of the oxygen for such a sustained
period.
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Obama hasn’t traveled outside Washington in July, except for a
weekend jaunt to the presidential retreat at Camp David. Lawmakers
who previously met with the president only sporadically came to the
White House for five straight days of talks, and will likely be
back again before Aug. 2, when the Treasury Department has warned
the government will default unless the debt ceiling is raised. The
House and Senate both canceled weeklong breaks planned for this
month so they could stay in town to work on a deal.
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The president has foreshadowed even more debt talk disruptions
through the rest of the summer if lawmakers don’t reach a
compromise.
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“We are not going to let Congress go on August recess – have a one
month vacation – while this problem doesn’t get solved,” Obama said
in a television interview Thursday.
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With the Aug. 2 deadline looming, the all-consuming nature of the
talks is a near-imperative for lawmakers and the
president.
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But because Obama and congressional leaders have essentially
cleared their schedules to focus on the negotiations, other
pressing national priorities are being overshadowed, or shelved
completely until there’s a debt deal.
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The debate over U.S. military involvement in Libya that was so
contentious just last month, for example, has garnered barely a
mention from the White House or Congress in recent weeks. The issue
hasn’t gone away – Republicans and anti-war Democrats still
question Obama’s legal authority to keep the U.S. engaged in the
Libya bombing campaign – but GOP lawmakers have insisted that
dealing with the debt should take precedence.
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The nation’s persistently high unemployment rate did manage to grab
the spotlight briefly last week, after a disastrous report showed
that job growth had nearly stalled. But there is little, if any,
progress being made on legislation that would directly lead to job
creation. Even passage of three key free-trade deals that both
Obama and Republicans say will support jobs in the U.S. has been
stymied by the debt talks, with administration officials putting
some of the blame for the delay in ratifying the agreements on the
tense partisan atmosphere created by the debt ceiling
debate.
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And forget about the overhaul of the controversial No Child Left
Behind education law the administration wanted lawmakers to finish
by the time the school year starts this fall. Congress has made so
little progress that the Education Department warned it’s coming up
with a plan B to give schools relief from the federal mandates if
lawmakers fail to act.
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While Obama continues to be briefed and hold private meetings on
issues unrelated to the debt talks, the White House has limited
Obama’s public appearances during the last week almost exclusively
to news conferences, statements or photo opportunities related to
the negotiations.
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“They’ve made the very realistic and practical judgment that those
other things won’t get attention,” said Tony Fratto, a White House
spokesman under former President George W. Bush.
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Still, Obama said Friday that he knows the American people would
rather see Washington focusing on issues that have more resonance
in their daily lives.
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“We’ve been obsessing over the last couple of weeks about raising
the debt ceiling and reducing the debt and deficit,” he said. “I
tell you what the American people are obsessing about right now is
that unemployment is still way too high and too many folks’ homes
are still underwater, and prices of things that they need, not just
that they want, are going up a lot faster than their paychecks are
if they’ve got a job.”
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But lawmakers from both parties say it would be difficult to
address any of those issues if they can’t get control of the
nation’s debt and prevent a default.
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“All of our guys know this is the moment to do something really
meaningful for the economy and our looming debt crisis,” said
Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. “If this
debate is blocking out the sun, it’s only because the debt problem
is just that large.”
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Lingering just below the surface of the debt debate – and sometimes
bubbling above it – is the fast-approaching 2012 election. As long
as Obama is stuck in Washington working on a deal, he won’t be
traveling to politically important battleground states to sell the
public on his policies or raise campaign funds. That may be a less
serious problem for Obama, who hauled in $86 million for his
re-election campaign and the Democratic Party in the three months
ending June 30. That was more than all his GOP rivals
combined.
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Those rivals, meanwhile, are steadily ramping up their campaigns
and attacks on Obama, while feeling little compulsion to jump into
the contentious and divisive debt debate consuming the
capital.
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—
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Julie Pace can be reached at “text-decoration: none; color: #000066;” href=
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