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"While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they've already racked up through the laws that they've passed," Obama said.

Hours later Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell swiped back at the president in an op-ed piece he wrote for Yahoo News.

"I have news for him," McConnell wrote. "The moment that he and virtually every elected Democrat in Washington signed off on the terms of the current arrangement, it was the last word on taxes. That debate is over."

But to get through the debt ceiling, the self-imposed limit on how much the U.S. government may borrow, there will have to be debate over spending, he insisted.

The ceiling of $16.394 trillion has already been reached. Excerpt from http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/03/politics/new-congress/index.html?hpt=hp_
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