White House open to debt increase
The White House has signalled that it would be open to a short-term hike in the US debt limit as the United States moved a step closer to its first-ever default while a separate impasse, a partial government shutdown, entered its second week.
The shutdown, which centres on a fight over funding for President Barack Obama’s new healthcare law, has pushed hundreds of thousands of workers off the job, closed national parks and museums and stopped an array of government services.
