THE DEBT CEILING DEBATE.

The debt ceiling talks have become critical, not just for the Obama government, but for the nation as a whole.

There are those in Congress, who are of the opinion that if the deadline of August 2nd, 2011 is allowed to go by without an agreement on raising the debt ceiling, government will continue to function normally. Most of them happen to be Republicans.

However, others maintain that if a compromise fails before that date, the government will be in serious trouble. The deficit gap will widen as the days go by, amounting in millions of dollars being added to it each single day.

"if Congress fails to pass a budget amendment in time for that early August deadline?", the result will be financially foreboding, says former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker on ABC's Top Line.

"The answer: a $4 billion-a-day gap in revenues coming in and expenditures going out, according to former U.S. Comptroller General, David Walker."; the program confirms him adding, among other things.

President Barack Obama has been doing a whole lot of hard work recently in holding meetings in the White House between himself and Congressional Republican leaders, who are in opposition to raising of the debt ceiling. For him, a common ground must be found to resolve the differences on both sides, in regard to closing the huge deficit gap that is being debated right now, so that the issue of raising the debt ceiling can be settled to avert a pending disaster.

Yet, according to reports, Congress has become totally dysfunctional, and its members are choosing to play politics, instead of honing in on a problem that will cause havoc to world financial markets, and so make the stock market at home to go haywire and interest rates to rise.

The United States Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner and many leading economists are warning lawmakers that it is a bad idea "to flirt with the deadline,"; and that they cannot afford to take a risk in making a political tug-of-war out of such an important issue. Besides, there is no precedence in American history, of the debt ceiling not being raised; for it is only done as a precaution or as a necessity to benefit the nation in an emergency situation.

Well, there are other meetings in the offing; one is set for this Sunday, July 10th, 2011 in the White House. Therefore, in the interest of all concerned, both opposing parties must seize the opportunity to reach an agreement, before it becomes too late for an "Armageddon-like" consequence to come to light, as it is being predicted.

The whole country wishes all its leaders well.