Senate 4th of July break cancelled

By Sarah Muller

  -  

Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:36 PM EDT

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid speaking to reporters along with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin on Capitol Hill Thursday.

Senators can kiss those holiday BBQs goodbye. With debt negotiations up in the air, the Senate announced today it cancelled their week long July 4th break to try and stop the government from barreling towards a first-ever default.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the whole caucus needs to be on hand to help deal with the debt talks.

“These things get resolved by meetings, people meeting and discussing things,” said Reid in a press conference. “I've had a number of senators both Democrats and Republicans say to me, do we really need to be here? Well we have to be here otherwise if one's not here they all won't be here. We don't want anyone to think that what we're doing here just the few of us can do.”

Reid invited President Obama and Vice President Biden to come to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to take part in the ongoing discussions.

Republicans said yesterday they wanted to scrap the break. But, that’s about the only "yes" out of the GOP camp these days; the current Republican position is the deficit reduction must come from 100-percent spending cuts and zero revenue increases.

The government’s current debt limit is $14.3 trillion. Unless the debt limit is raised by Aug. 2, the U.S. could default and face potentially catastrophic effects on the economy.

Standard & Poor's exec John Chambers said the agency will give the U.S. its lowest credit rating if lawmakers fail to raise the debt ceiling.