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President Barack Obama talks about the ongoing budget negotiations, Monday, July 11, 2011, in the briefing room of the White House in Washington.Charles Dharapak/AP

There was nothing inevitable about the puerile staring match Barack Obama and John Boehner have backed themselves into.

The President could have made overtures weeks ago in what were destined to be gruelling negotiations with Republicans to raise the statutory limit on federal borrowing in conjunction with a major deficit-reduction deal. Instead, he outsourced the grunt work to Vice-President Joe Biden.

And if Mr. Boehner, the Republican House of Representatives Speaker, had been serious from the outset about reaching a $4-trillion (U.S.) deficit deal, he could have massaged his caucus members for some form of tax increases before they learned about them from the press.

Both men sought to enhance their leadership by seeking a "grand debt bargain" that would fundamentally improve America's fiscal trajectory. In the end, both could emerge weakened when Aug. 2 rolls around.

By that date, Congress needs to have passed legislation to raise the $14.3-trillion debt ceiling if the U.S. Treasury is to avoid defaulting on its bonds and continue borrowing money to finance government spending.

There is still only a minute possibility that no deal will get done.

Twice on Monday, Mr. Boehner made a point of reassuring financial markets that he is not about to let the world's richest country become a deadbeat debtor. So, the stare-down we are witnessing is not about whether to raise the debt limit. It has to do with how much it is about to be raised.

Republicans have tied any increase in the debt ceiling to a dollar-for-dollar decrease in the deficit over 10 years. The President claims to want a comprehensive $4-trillion deficit-reduction deal that tackles the costliest entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - while reforming the tax system to bring in as much as $1-trillion in new revenues.

But the likelihood of such a grand deal melted like a Slurpee in the D.C. summer after word filtered back to rank-and-file Republicans that Mr. Boehner might agree to something resembling a tax increase.

By Monday, after near open revolt by his caucus and a public rebuke by his second-in-command, the Speaker was leaving no room for ambiguity. "The American people will not accept, and the House cannot pass, a bill that raises taxes on job creators," a chastened Mr. Boehner told reporters.

As for Mr. Obama, there is no mystery why he would prefer a big deal. He wants to avoid revisiting the debt-ceiling issue once more before the 2012 presidential election.

"The things I will not consider are a 30-day or a 60-day or a 90-day or 180-day temporary stopgap resolution to this problem," Mr. Obama said Monday at his second press conference in as many weeks. "If we think it's hard now, imaging how these guys are going to be thinking six months from now in the middle of election season."

Yet, the President is partly to blame for his predicament. Had he truly sought to "do something meaningful on debt and deficits," he should not have waited until late June to get personally involved in the negotiations.

Now, he is faced with an unpalatable choice. To raise the debt ceiling enough to get beyond the 2012 election, he will have to agree to a deficit-reduction package made up almost entirely of spending cuts - a move that will make him look like a pushover with the Democratic base.

But if he resists large cuts to entitlement programs, he will have to settle for a smaller increase in the borrowing limit. That could force him to hold another fractious debt-ceiling vote just as Americans go to the polls.

Last week, Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner thought they could both be winners in this negotiation. Now, perhaps neither will be.

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