Behind impasse in Congress: Rising deficits, record debt

Congress bought itself more time with a weekend agreement to avoid a government shutdown, but now a 45-day clock is ticking to reach a deal on the federal budget – and both parties will need to be involved in reaching it.

Partisanship is so intense that expectations in Washington are low that Congress will solve much of anything before elections 13 months from now. The talks in coming weeks will focus on just discretionary spending, not entitlement programs, for one thing.

But the reality is that control of power is narrowly divided between both parties, and doing nothing is not an option. They’ll need to find a deal to keep the government running in 2024. And time, math, and