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The fiscal fights of the Obama administration

An interactive timeline

President Barack Obama meets with House Speaker John Boehner about the debt limit

The Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections touched off a series of budgetary battles between the White House and congressional Republicans that would rage on for the rest President Obama’s presidency. These “fiscal fights” included:

  • Arguments over how federal resources should be raised and spent, including debates over tax cuts, sequestration, and government shutdowns (labeled “Fiscal”)
  • Disagreements over whether to raise the debt ceiling (labeled “Debt Ceiling”)
  • Clashes that brought both sets of conflicts together, as when Republicans used the debt ceiling to demand fiscal cuts, leading to the Budget Control Act of 2011 (labeled “Debt/Fiscal”)

We recap these important fiscal fights that did so much to define American politics over the last six years in the timeline below.

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