<img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-798" title="3135433564_b0510e24d3_m" src="https://americanmonetaryassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2011/08/3135433564_b0510e24d3_m.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="174" />In case you have a severe case of insomnia, you can read the entire 74 page text of the <a href="http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/228727/debt-bill.pdf " target="_blank">Budget Control Agreement of 2011 here</a>. Note we're not saying you SHOULD read it, only that you can if you so choose. Unless you've been prospecting on the far side of Mars for most of the year, you're probably aware that there has been something of an impasse between congress and the president for most of the year. The sides were long ago staked out. Fiscal conservatives didn't want to raise the debt ceiling without a plan in place to cut America's spend happy ways. Fiscal "progressives" wanted to raise the debt ceiling, raise taxes, and raise the odds that our economy would implode in a cloud of credit rating downgrading.