text: The sun rises on the U.S. Capitol dome as the prayer group Faithful Filibuster — Carol Busroe, Gary Cook, Jim Wallis and Ray East — pray for a solution to end the shutdown and extend the Treasury Department’s borrowing power. 
   
   Oct. 16, 2013 The sun rises on the U.S. Capitol dome as the prayer group Faithful Filibuster — Carol Busroe, Gary Cook, Jim Wallis and Ray East — pray for a solution to end the shutdown and extend the Treasury Department’s borrowing power. Melina Mara/The Washington Post 
   
   The federal government is in the third week of a shutdown while Congress worked out a deal to fund its operations and to avoid a possible default because of the debt limit. 
   
   Meanwhile, furloughed federal workers express their displeasure as the government shutdown headed into its third week. 
   
   Meanwhile, furloughed federal workers express their displeasure as the government shutdown headed into its third week. 
   
   What started as a mad dash to strike a deal to lift the federal debt limit slowed to a crawl over the weekend as stalemated Senate leaders waited nervously to see whether financial markets would plunge Monday morning and drive the other side toward compromise. 
   
   Republicans seemed to think they had more to lose. After talks broke down between President Obama and House leaders, GOP senators quickly cobbled together a plan to end the government shutdown — now entering its third week — and raise the $16.7 trillion debt limit. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) then asked Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) to elevate negotiations to the highest level. 
   
   On Sunday — with the Treasury Department due to exhaust its borrowing power in just four days — Reid was wielding that leverage to maximum advantage. Rather than making concessions that would undermine Obama’s signature health-care initiative, as Republicans first demanded, Democrats are now on the offensive and seeking to undo what has become a cherished prize for the GOP: deep agency spending cuts known as the sequester. 
   
   Reid and McConnell spoke only once Sunday, a telephone call in the afternoon, aides said. As he closed a rare Sunday session of the Senate, Reid characterized the conversation as “productive” and “substantive.” 
   
   “I’m optimistic about the prospects for a positive conclusion to the issues before this country today,” he said. 
   
   With legislative action stalled on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are getting creative with where they shine the spotlight on the government shutdown. (The Washington Post) 
   
   But the shift in focus away from the imminent threat of a first-ever default on the U.S. debt sparked outrage among Republicans and alarm among the world’s financial leaders, meeting this weekend in Washington. 
   
   Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that a failure by the United States to make scheduled payments to investors “would mean massive disruption the world over. And we would be at risk of tipping yet again into a recession.” 
   
   Republicans, meanwhile, said any agreement to back away from the sequester cuts would be opposed by GOP senators and doomed in the Republican House. 
   
   The fight over the debt limit is “typically a point where you try to create reforms and reduce deficits, so to agree to something that raises spending from previously agreed-to levels, I just can’t imagine that,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). “I just can’t imagine how that has any possibility of becoming law.” 
   
   Democrats insisted that they have no interest in rolling back the sequester cuts now. Reid noted that the Senate had already approved and sent to the House a measure that would leave the cuts in place through the middle of November, with “not a word about breaking [spending] caps,” Reid said on the Senate floor. 
   
   Instead, Democrats said they objected to a debt-limit plan developed by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) because it would permit the cuts to stay in place through March, allowing another round of sequester cuts to hit on Jan. 15. 
   
   At that point, agency spending for fiscal 2014, which began Oct. 1, would be on track to fall roughly $90 billion lower than Democrats have proposed. And with the fiscal year half over, Democrats would have scant opportunity to renegotiate the numbers, a top priority. 
   
   On Sunday, Democrats familiar with the talks said Reid was pressing McConnell to accept a quicker deadline on a temporary measure to fund federal agencies and reopen the government and a longer deadline for raising the debt limit. Collins’s proposal would extend the Treasury Department’s borrowing authority only until the end of January. 
   
   “The plan would be, open up the government immediately for a period of time before the sequester hits [on Jan. 15] and then have serious discussions where we might be able to undo the sequester,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I’m optimistic that could work.” 
   
   Schumer noted that House Republicans have already offered to roll back the sequester cuts in a proposal the White House rejected Friday. That plan would have immediately suspended enforcement of the debt limit and reopened the government in exchange for a plan to replace sequester savings in 2014 (and perhaps longer) with reductions to Social Security and Medicare proposed in Obama’s budget. 
   
   “That was one place where the House Republicans and the president were not, you know, at total loggerheads,” Schumer said, suggesting that a deal could be cut if Republicans would consider new revenue along with cuts to entitlement programs. 
   
   McConnell appeared to be far less optimistic. The sequester cuts are part of $2.1 trillion in agency spending cuts over 10 years included in the Budget Control Act, the measure that raised the debt limit in 2011. Initially, Republicans, too, wanted to replace the sequester, particularly the portion that falls on the Pentagon. But since Obama won tax hikes on the wealthy as part of a year-end fight over the “fiscal cliff,” McConnell has taken to casting the sequester as a significant GOP victory from which the party cannot retreat. 
   
   “I think our main goal going into the year-end discussion is to not walk away from the bipartisan agreement that we made two years ago to reduce spending,” he told reporters this summer. 
   
   On Sunday, McConnell maintained a stony silence, failing to show up at the Capitol for his usual opening speech on the Senate floor. Instead, he issued a statement throwing his support for the first time behind the Collins proposal, calling it a “bipartisan plan” brokered with five other GOP senators and six senators who caucus with Democrats. 
   
   “It would reopen the government, prevent a default . . . and maintain the commitment that Congress made to reduce Washington spending through the Budget Control Act — the law of the land,” McConnell said. “It’s time for Democrat leaders to take ‘yes’ for an answer.” 
   
   Some Democrats tend to agree with McConnell. During a caucus meeting Saturday, Reid and his leadership team spent more than an hour arguing to Democrats anxious about default that the Collins plan is not a good deal for the party. On Sunday, Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), one of the Democrats working with Collins, defended the proposal on “Fox News Sunday” as having “a little bit of move for everybody. In a divided government, you can’t have it all your way.” 
   
   Soon after McConnell’s statement appeared, however, the Collins collaborators hustled into Reid’s office just outside the Senate chamber. Some of them were still inside when a joint statement was issued on behalf of Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Angus King (I-Maine) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) “responding to Senator McConnell’s comments.” 
   
   “We have been involved in productive, bipartisan discussions with Senator Collins and other Republican senators,” the statement said, “but we do not support the proposal in its current form.” 
   
   An hour later, an update appeared adding Manchin’s name. “NOTE,” it said: “Senator Manchin was unavailable when the original statement was sent out.” 
   
   Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has said that if Congress fails to lift the debt limit, he will exhaust his borrowing authority on Thursday. At that point, he will have to rely on a cash balance of about $30 billion and incoming revenue to pay the nation’s bills. 
   
   Independent analysts say Lew will not begin missing payments immediately but will begin to run short of funds no later than Nov. 1, when nearly $60 billion is due to Social Security recipients, Medicare providers, active-duty military service members and civil-service retirees. 
   
   Investors are next due to collect interest on Treasury bonds — perhaps the most important payments from the perspective of global markets — on Oct. 31. 
   
   Still, many lawmakers are leery of missing the Thursday deadline — particularly Republicans, who are already getting hammered in public opinion polls over the government shutdown. The Dow Jones industrial average soared Friday on news that Obama and congressional Republicans were finally talking. 
   
   “Look, I guess we can get lower in the polls. We’re down to blood relatives and paid staffers now,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) joked on “Face the Nation.” “But we’ve got to turn this around. And the Democrats had better help us.” 
   
   Jeff Simon contributed to this report. ||||| WASHINGTON U.S. senators said they were closing in on a deal Monday that would reopen the government and push back a possible default for several months, though many hurdles remained as a Thursday deadline drew near. 
   
   The Senate's top Democrat and top Republican both said they hoped they could soon reach an agreement that would allow them to avert a looming default and end a partial government shutdown that has dragged on for 14 days so far. 
   
   "I'm very optimistic that we that we will reach an agreement that's reasonable in nature this week," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor. 
   
   Lawmakers are racing against the clock, with U.S. officials estimating that the federal government could run out of borrowing capacity on October 17. 
   
   The plan under discussion would raise the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling by enough to cover the nation's borrowing needs at least through mid-February 2014, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. 
   
   It also would fund government operations through the middle of January, keeping in place the across-the-board "sequester" spending cuts that took effect in March, though government agencies would have more latitude to ease their impact. It would also set up a new round of budget talks that would try to strike a bargain by year's end. 
   
   Any deal would also have to win approval in the House of Representatives, where conservative Republicans have insisted that any continued government funding must include measures to undercut President Barack Obama's signature health law - a nonstarter for Democrats. 
   
   The deal would not resolve the disagreements over long-term spending and health care that led to the crisis in the first place. It would amount to a clear retreat for Republicans who have sought to tie any continued funding and borrowing authority to measures that would undercut Obama's Affordable Care Act. 
   
   Republicans have taken a hit in opinion polls since the standoff began and some in the party worry it could hurt their chances to win control of the Senate in next year's midterm elections. 
   
   A Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Monday found that 74 percent of Americans disapprove of the way congressional Republicans have handled the standoff, compared with a 53 percent disapproval rating for Obama. 
   
   Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky echoed Reid's comments that a deal could come together soon. 
   
   "I share his optimism that we we're going to get a result that will be acceptable to both sides," he said on the Senate floor. 
   
   The White House postponed a planned 3 p.m. (1900 GMT) meeting with congressional leaders in order to give negotiators more time to work out a deal. 
   
   The Treasury Department says it cannot guarantee that the U.S. government will be able to pay its bills past October 17 if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling by then. 
   
   A default would likely come by November 1 as Treasury would not have enough tax revenue coming in to cover interest payments, retirement benefits and other obligations. 
   
   WEIGHING ON THE ECONOMY 
   
   It is unclear whether Congress can meet that October 17 deadline. Even if Republicans and Democrats in the Senate reach agreement on Monday, hard-liners such as Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz might be able to exploit Senate rules to delay a vote for several days. 
   
   House Speaker John Boehner also could face an insurrection that could threaten his position as Washington's top Republican if he tries to advance a bill over the objections of rank-and-file conservatives in that chamber. 
   
   "If the Senate comes to an agreement, we'll review it with our members," Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said. 
   
   Though Treasury likely will have enough cash on hand to meet its obligations for a week or so, it might be forced to pay a higher interest rate on debt it is due to issue on Thursday. 
   
   Banks and money market funds are already shunning some government securities that are often used as collateral for short-term loans and to facilitate many other transactions. In China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, the state news agency Xinhua said it was time for a "de-Americanized world." 
   
   Though some Republicans have argued that the government could avoid serious consequences by prioritizing interest payments over other types of spending, that view is not widely held by the public. 
   
   A Reuters/IPSOS poll released on Tuesday found that only 25 percent believe the debt ceiling issue is "overblown." 
   
   U.S. stocks were buoyed by prospects of a deal. The S&P; 500 Index closed up 0.41 percent while the Nasdaq Composite Index ended 0.62 percent higher. 
   
   The government shutdown, now in its 14th day, is beginning to weigh on the economy. The hundreds of thousands of federal employees who have been temporarily thrown out of work are likely to get back-pay when the standoff is resolved. But they aren't getting paid now, forcing many to dial back on personal spending and cancel holiday travel plans. 
   
   The crisis is only the latest in a series of budget battles in recent years that have repeatedly spooked investors and consumers. The uncertainty has weighed on the economy and boosted the unemployment rate by 0.6 of a percentage point, or the equivalent of 900,000 jobs since late 2009, according to a new estimate by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a think tank. 
   
   Foreign leaders and business executives have urged Washington to resolve the crisis before it does further damage. 
   
   "This is all bad for America, bad for the economy, bad for job growth, bad for consumer confidence, and the quicker we get it resolved, the better," Terry Lundgren, chief executive of retailer Macy's Inc, told Reuters. 
   
   Republicans in the Senate are pushing to include slight modifications to the Affordable Care Act. One would toughen income verification for those seeking health insurance subsidies under the law. Another could delay a reinsurance fee included in the law that otherwise would start in 2014, according to a labor-union source. 
   
   Throughout the shutdown, Obama has said Republicans must agree to reopen the government and extend the debt ceiling before the two sides can begin talks on spending or tweaks to his Affordable Care Act. 
   
   That position has not changed. 
   
   "We will not pay a ransom for Congress reopening the government and raising the debt limit," the White House said in a statement on Monday morning. 
   
   (Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Tim Reid, David Lawder, Amanda Becker, Lisa Lambert and Susan Heavey and Steve Holland in Washington and Phil Wahba in New York; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Karey Van Hall, Claudia Parsons and Tim Dobbyn) ||||| WASHINGTON — With a possible default on government obligations just days away, Senate Democratic leaders — believing they have a political advantage in the continuing fiscal impasse — refused Sunday to sign on to any deal that reopens the government but locks in budget cuts for next year. 
   
   The disagreement extended the stalemate that has kept much of the government shuttered for two weeks and threatens to force a federal default. 
   
   The core of the dispute is about spending, and how long a stopgap measure that would reopen the government should last. Democrats want the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration to last only through mid-November; Republicans want them to last as long as possible. 
   
   The Democrats’ demand shows a newfound aggressiveness. Previously, they had favored a so-called clean bill that would reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling without any policy changes attached. With Republicans on the defensive, it remains unclear whether the Democrats are using a negotiating ploy to raise the likelihood that any final deal will include their priorities as well as the Republicans’. 
   
   Photo 
   
   Democrats said Sunday that Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader — who spoke only briefly by telephone — were inching forward, and that a breakthrough was possible before the debt default deadline on Thursday. 
   
   “They had a good conversation,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat, said on Sunday evening. “They are moving closer together, and I’m hopeful the Senate can save the day.” 
   
   Republicans accused Democrats of accepting nothing short of capitulation without offering anything in return. “The Democrats keep moving the goal posts,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the lead Republican negotiators. “Decisions within the Democratic conference are constantly changing.” 
   
   Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, warned on the CBS News program “Face the Nation” that the Democrats “better understand something.” 
   
   “What goes around comes around,” he said, “and if they try to humiliate Republicans, things change in American politics.” 
   
   A rally on the National Mall, led by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, was intended to show that Tea Party activists — supporters of the House Republicans who forced the shutdown over their opposition to the new health care law — were in no mood to give in. Some waved Confederate flags and called for President Obama to be impeached. 
   
   The dispute may involve debt ceiling technicalities, but at the core of the fight is a more fundamental question: with polls showing that Republicans are carrying the brunt of the blame for the shutdown, can Democrats demand total surrender, or should they offer concessions to complete the deal? 
   
   “You can’t just demand pure capitulation,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma. “Negotiations don’t work that way.” 
   
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   Republicans once said that they would finance the government only if the president’s health care law was gutted. A bipartisan Senate framework drafted by Ms. Collins and Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, started with a face-saving move for Republicans of a repeal of a tax on medical devices that helps pay for the Affordable Care Act. When Senate Democratic leaders objected, that was tempered to a two-year delay of the tax. 
   
   Republicans had also insisted on tightening income verification rules for the health care law’s subsidized insurance exchanges. Now Democrats are rewriting that language as well. 
   
   “What am I getting?” Ms. Collins said. “I’m serious. I’ve bent over backward.” 
   
   Photo 
   
   Democrats have agreed to engage in formal budget negotiations — where, they acknowledge, Republicans may have the upper hand once the government is reopened and the threat of default is lifted. Both sides say they want a deal that reduces the deficit over the long term. 
   
   Republicans have one advantage: if no deal is reached during those talks, the next round of automatic cuts, even deeper than the first, go into force on Jan. 1. 
   
   “We know that come 10 years from now, Medicare is not sustainable financially,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, said on the NBC News program “Meet the Press.” “We’ve got to do something.” 
   
   “And I have to say to the Republican side, ‘For goodness’s sakes, we cannot find some savings, closing some loopholes, quote, raising revenue?’ Well, of course we can,” he said. 
   
   The Collins plan would maintain sequestration-level spending through Jan. 15, when formal budget negotiators would be required to complete a House-Senate agreement on spending and taxation over the next decade. That date was already a concession. Ms. Collins, along with Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both Republicans, initially wanted to finance the government for six months at those levels. The initial proposal by Ms. Collins would also have extended the debt ceiling only to Nov. 15, but at the request of Senate Democratic leaders, she and Mr. McConnell pushed it back to Jan. 31. 
   
   Mr. McConnell formally endorsed the Collins proposal on Sunday. 
   
   “It would reopen the government, prevent a default, provide the opportunity for additional budget negotiations around Washington’s long-term debt, and maintain the commitment that Congress made to reduce Washington spending,” he said in a statement. “It’s time for Democrat leaders to take ‘yes’ for an answer.” 
   
   But Democratic leaders have balked, and they flexed their muscle Sunday with a group of Democratic and independent senators negotiating with Ms. Collins. 
   
   Ms. Collins said eight Democrats were now involved in negotiations, including Mr. Manchin, and Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with the Democrats. 
   
   “The Democratic leadership is clearly very strong and has a lot of sway over its members,” Ms. Collins said. 
   
   Underscoring those concerns, six of the senators negotiating with Ms. Collins — Mr. Manchin, Mr. King, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana — released a joint statement acknowledging involvement in the talks but saying they could not support the proposal “in its current form.” 
   
   “There are negotiations,” they said, “but there is no agreement.” ||||| Tourists visit the Statue of Liberty in New York, the United States, Oct. 16, 2013. The Statue of Liberty reopened to the public on Oct. 13 after New York State reached an agreement with the federal government to reopen the Statue of Liberty which is closed as a result of the partial federal government shutdown. (Xinhua/Wang Lei) 
   
   By Xinhua writer Liu Chang 
   
   BEIJING, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- As U.S. politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world. 
   
   Emerging from the bloodshed of the Second World War as the world's most powerful nation, the United States has since then been trying to build a global empire by imposing a postwar world order, fueling recovery in Europe, and encouraging regime-change in nations that it deems hardly Washington-friendly. 
   
   With its seemingly unrivaled economic and military might, the United States has declared that it has vital national interests to protect in nearly every corner of the globe, and been habituated to meddling in the business of other countries and regions far away from its shores. 
   
   Meanwhile, the U.S. government has gone to all lengths to appear before the world as the one that claims the moral high ground, yet covertly doing things that are as audacious as torturing prisoners of war, slaying civilians in drone attacks, and spying on world leaders. 
   
   Under what is known as the Pax-Americana, we fail to see a world where the United States is helping to defuse violence and conflicts, reduce poor and displaced population, and bring about real, lasting peace. 
   
   Moreover, instead of honoring its duties as a responsible leading power, a self-serving Washington has abused its superpower status and introduced even more chaos into the world by shifting financial risks overseas, instigating regional tensions amid territorial disputes, and fighting unwarranted wars under the cover of outright lies. 
   
   As a result, the world is still crawling its way out of an economic disaster thanks to the voracious Wall Street elites, while bombings and killings have become virtually daily routines in Iraq years after Washington claimed it has liberated its people from tyrannical rule. 
   
   Most recently, the cyclical stagnation in Washington for a viable bipartisan solution over a federal budget and an approval for raising debt ceiling has again left many nations' tremendous dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community highly agonized. 
   
   Such alarming days when the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation have to be terminated, and a new world order should be put in place, according to which all nations, big or small, poor or rich, can have their key interests respected and protected on an equal footing. 
   
   To that end, several corner stones should be laid to underpin a de-Americanized world. 
   
   For starters, all nations need to hew to the basic principles of the international law, including respect for sovereignty, and keeping hands off domestic affairs of others. 
   
   Furthermore, the authority of the United Nations in handling global hotspot issues has to be recognized. That means no one has the right to wage any form of military action against others without a UN mandate. 
   
   Apart from that, the world's financial system also has to embrace some substantial reforms. 
   
   The developing and emerging market economies need to have more say in major international financial institutions including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, so that they could better reflect the transformations of the global economic and political landscape. 
   
   What may also be included as a key part of an effective reform is the introduction of a new international reserve currency that is to be created to replace the dominant U.S. dollar, so that the international community could permanently stay away from the spillover of the intensifying domestic political turmoil in the United States. 
   
   Of course, the purpose of promoting these changes is not to completely toss the United States aside, which is also impossible. Rather, it is to encourage Washington to play a much more constructive role in addressing global affairs. 
   
   And among all options, it is suggested that the beltway politicians first begin with ending the pernicious impasse. 
   
   Related: 
   
   Obama signs bill to end gov't shutdown, raise debt ceiling 
   
   WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama signed early Thursday an 11th-hour deal to end a partial government shutdown and raise debt ceiling. 
   
   White House has subsequently asked agencies to reopen promptly. Full story 
   
   U.S. Congress passes bill to reopen government, raise debt limit 
   
   WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday night approved a deal to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the federal government, clearing final hurdle of the legislation in the Congress. 
   
   The House voted 285-144 in favor of the bill, which funds the government through Jan. 15 and raises the debt ceiling until Feb.7. The Senate overwhelmingly approved the deal earlier Wednesday night. Full story 
   
   U.S. Senate leader announces bipartisan budget deal 
   
   WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Senate leader said on Wednesday that a bipartisan deal is reached to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the federal government. 
   
   "This compromise we reached will provide our economy with the stability it desperately needs," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the Senate floor. Full story 
   
   Backgrounder: U.S. debt ceiling, default risks
target: – As the government shutdown enters its third week, Senate leaders appear to be waiting for world financial markets to give them a jolt before they make a deal, the Washington Post reports. Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell had a conversation yesterday that Reid says left him "optimistic about the prospects for a positive conclusion." But there's no indication of what a compromise might look like, and Democrats are now pushing for a deal that would lift the sequester budget cuts, showing what the New York Times calls a "newfound aggressiveness." The sequester demand has Republicans frustrated. "The Democrats keep moving the goal posts," complains Sen. Susan Collins, the centrist GOP senator whose plan to resolve the crisis was rejected. Bob Corker agreed, saying of lifting the cuts, "I just can't imagine how that has any possibility of becoming law." The Post worries that the increasingly bitter McConnell-Reid feud could deep-six the deal. Things have gotten so bad that their colleagues recently held "the equivalent of an intervention," the paper says. World Bank and International Monetary Fund leaders urged the US to hurry up and forge a deal, with IMF director Christine Lagarde warning that "massive disruption the world over" looms. A foreign ministry spokesman in China called for American lawmakers to "shoulder their responsibilities," Reuters reports, and a scathing editorial in China's Xinhua state news agency called for politicians to end the "pernicious impasse"—and for everybody else to "start considering building a de-Americanized world." Claims that America has never defaulted on its debt are part of every debt-limit battle but the US has stiffed its creditors at least twice, the AP finds. In 1814, the government ran out of gold and silver to pay interest to bondholders in New England after setbacks in the War of 1812, and in 1979, a technical glitch that followed a long debt-limit squabble caused a delay in redeeming maturing T-bills that ended up adding about $12 billion to the cost of servicing the national debt.