Washington – House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican deputies are in a fight to the buzzer to round up enough support to pass his deficit-reduction bill, as the House begins arguably the most harrowing series of votes in his tenure -- with the nation's borrowing power, the economy and everybody's interest rates in the balance.

As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said over the weekend, the administration did not expect Congress to come this close to the Aug. 2 deadline. That's the date when the country will no longer be able to pay all its bills without a debt-ceiling increase, according to Treasury, risking the possibility of default.

Barring the last-minute entrance of a compromise bill, there are only two options for skirting that deadline -- a Democratic bill in the Senate that Republicans deride as a "blank check" for President Obama, and Boehner's bill...