The deadline cometh

One begins to wonder how many D-Days can be packed into a single year.

After all the potential “government shutdown” deadlines resulting from a seemingly endless series of short-term continuing resolutions to fund the federal government earlier this year, feds now face the Aug. 2 deadline to raise the debt ceiling.

As probably even smallest child knows by now, a failure to come to an agreement by that time would force the federal government into default where it can no longer afford to pay its bills.

The federal government would no longer be able to write many of the 70 million checks it sends out every month (or 80 million, depending on who one listens to), and the government’s credit rating probably would be downgraded. And all heck would break loose for Social Security recipients, Medicare beneficiaries and others, to name a few.

What has largely been a procedural vote in years past has turned into an ideological tug-of-war this year. The political parties in Congress apparently have failed to do their job to bring holdouts into line to reach a mutual solution that will survive a presidential veto. And stand-fast budget cutters in the House continue to block any compromise on the issue, perhaps forgetting (or never having known) that the legislative process is all about compromise.

While a lot of the recent topline news on the debt ceiling has centered on what has been going on in Congress and the White House, we have heard less about what is going on in federal agencies.

So we ask: What is the official line at your agency? What’s the talk around the water cooler? And how are you taking all of this?