This Week’s Agenda: Debt Ceiling, Egypt, Economy

Last Friday night, with a government shutdown staring them right in the eyes, Congress was able to come to temporary resolution over the 2011 budget crisis. President Barack Obama will lay out the details for reducing the deficit in a speech Wednesday night. What’s the next big showdown in Washington? Raising the debt ceiling.  Charlie Herman, business and economics editor for The Takeaway and WNYC Radio, sees the debt debate as “bigger and more troublesome” than what just transpired over the budget. With President Obama making it through the bitter budget negotiations, he will most likely have more time to turn his attention back to the international world, especially the Arab world and Japan.
Charlie Sennott, executive editor for GlobalPost, believes the State Department needs to pay more attention to what’s happening Egypt. The Egyptian military, which has been in control of the government since President Hosni Mubarak’s ousting, and were the guardians of the revolution, reportedly fired live ammunition into a crowd in Cairo over the weekend, killing at least one protester. Sennott also brings an update on the arrest of one of his correspondents in Libya, James Foley. Foley along with three other journalists were arrested by Moammar Gadhafi’s forces last week.  
Herman helps us look at key economic indicators scheduled to be released this week, including retail sales numbers, inflation figures, and a number of earnings reports from the world’s largest companies, including Google. These could tell us how our economy is doing.