By Billy House and Susan Davis

It took the full weight of leadership and an 11th hour capitulation to a band of fiscal conservatives to secure enough support for House Republicans to send a debt-ceiling bill off to fail in the Senate.

As such, just four days before the United States is scheduled to begin defaulting on its debts, Washington remained mired in deadlock with lawmakers holding firm to intractable positions on their deficit-reduction conditions required to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

The House has narrowly passed, 218-210, a bill the Senate cannot support and the White...]]>