Virginity Preserved?

Hours before a debt disaster, the Senate appears to have reached a budget deal that will end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling … at least for a few months. Will the House approve the deal? Even sure things are tough to predict in this environment, but the market sure seems to think we are on track.

+ Here’s a liveblog of all the action.

+ Even if the U.S. doesn’t default, we will have come close. And that marks a sad moment in American politics. Warren Buffett criticized elected officials for using a “political weapon of mass destruction” and described the “idiocy” of damaging America’s reputation for paying its bills on time: “Credit worthiness is like virginity, it can be preserved but not restored very easily, so it is crazy to play around with it.”

+ Derek Thompson: American politics deserves to be downgraded.