Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) has officially invited President Obama to give his State of the Union address before the Congress on February 12 and the President has accepted.

Ultimately it is the Supreme Court that decides the legality of unilateral ways to avoid the debt limit, be it with a platinum coin, invoking the 14th Amendment or moral obligation coupons. But the only way the Supreme Court could end up ruling on one of these actions is if President Obama actually uses one to avoid the looming crisis, then someone with standing sued him, and the Court decided to take the case.

I would love to hear individuals threatening not to raise the debt limit have to explain why that law must be followed, but the President must break other contradictory laws to do so. I’m very interested in hearing, for example, the legal reasoning behind why Wall Street bond holders should still be paid while doctors, FBI agents and seniors should be stiffed.

It is impossible to know what the exact deadline will be. How much money the government takes in over the next several weeks will determine exactly when the limit is hit and since it is tax season that is hard to estimate with precision. The federal government is already taking extraordinary measures to put off the moment for as long as possible.

The next big looming fight in Congress is clear and the battle lines have already been drawn. The debt ceiling will be reached in roughly two months. President Obama claims that he will not negotiate over it again. Meanwhile Republicans are demanding spending cuts with no tax increases in exchange for raising the debt limit. Republicans threaten they will allow the country to default unless Obama gives them what they want.

Just two weeks ago President Obama was taking a very firm stand on the debt ceiling. He was claiming he would never again allow something so dangerous to be used as a political bargaining chip, but almost immediately he crumbled like a sandcastle at high tide. President Obama went from demanding a permanent solution to the debt ceiling to accepting only a two year increase from Republicans as part large budget deal.

The White House announced they would veto “Plan B,” John Boehner’s gambit to pass a bill extending the Bush-era tax rtes for all earners on the first $1 million of income. And Nancy Pelosi said that Boehner had better have 218 votes for such a bill, since House Democrats won’t provide any. Of course, Boehner [...]

Given how quickly and how often Obama relents it must be very difficult for John Boehner to sell any compromise to his caucus, since it is almost a sure bet that if Republicans remain intransigent Obama will make further concessions

The headlines here is that the Obama Administration narrowed the demand they maintained for four years, for tax rates to increase above $250,000, and they would agree to a benefit cut for Social Security and $400 billion in unspecified Medicare cuts, and in exchange they would mostly extend current law on a few fronts (but not all) and get an unspecified amount, no more than $50 billion, in infrastructure spending.

The offer apparently paired $1 trillion in tax increases with major social insurance cuts. Assuming that the spending cuts match the tax hikes dollar-for-dollar, all Boehner is saying is that his rule, where every dollar of debt limit increase must be matched by a dollar of spending cuts, remains in effect. So he’ll honor that with a $1 trillion increase in the debt limit. Tax increases do not count as deficit reduction in Boehner’s equation; only spending cuts will register for increasing the debt limit.