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Senate Democrats might introduce a measure to raise the debt ceiling, even as the debate over a a spending bill to re-start the federal government drags on.

The Associated Press reports:

"A spokesman said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could unveil the measure as early as Tuesday, setting the table for a test vote later in the week. The measure is expected to provide enough borrowing room to last beyond next year's election, which means it likely will permit $1 trillion or more in new borrowing above the current $16.7 trillion debt ceiling that the administration says will be hit on Oct. 17."

The government is just 10 days away from defaulting on its debt. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has said that by Oct. 17, the department will likely have less money on hand than it needs to pay all its bills.

"The reality is that if we run out of cash to pay our bills, there is no option that permits us to pay all of our bills on time, which means that a failure of Congress to act would for the first time put us in a place where we're defaulting on our obligations as a government," Lew said on NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday.

House Republicans say there's a way to minimize the negative effects of a default. In May, the GOP-controlled House passed a bill that would have prioritized some of the payments the Treasury makes so the most important bills could get paid first.

The bill directed the U.S. Treasury to pay bondholders first if there wasn't enough money available to pay all the nation's debts. It didn't become law because it wasn't passed by the Senate.

House Speaker John Boehner defended the idea on Bloomberg TV. "I think doing a debt-prioritization bill makes it clear to our bondholders that we're going to meet our obligations," he said.

When asked if that means paying China before U.S. troops, Boehner said it's no different than "in any other court proceeding."

"The bondholders usually get paid first," he said. "Same thing here."

But Mark Patterson, the chief of staff at the U.S. Treasury from 2009 to last May, dismisses the idea.

"I think if you ask anybody who has been secretary of the Treasury of either party going back many years, they would tell you that is a god-awful idea," Patterson says.

Ultimately, says Patterson, making payments to bondholders but delaying checks for seniors on Social Security, for instance, still undermines confidence in the commitment by the United States to meet its obligations.

"If we go into an internal debt crisis, if you will, where we're not paying Social Security beneficiaries who've paid into the system over the years, many of whom live check to check, then we are going to appear as a country that is in a whole lot of trouble and the world is going to view us that way," Patterson says.

He says that Treasury departments in both Democratic and Republican administrations have concluded that paying all of the nation's bills "on time, in full" is what makes investors, whether they're individuals or other countries, willing to lend money to the U.S.

The Two-Way

No End In Sight: Shutdown Showdown Enters Week 2

The U.S. Supreme Court returns to the campaign finance fray on Tuesday, hearing arguments in a case that could undercut most of the remaining rules that limit big money in politics.

It's been three years since the court's landmark Citizens United ruling, which let loose a new flood of campaign cash into the political process. In that 2010 case, a narrow conservative court majority upset a century-long legal understanding and declared for the first time that corporations are people entitled to spend unlimited amounts on candidate elections. Those independent expenditure limitations were one pillar of the campaign finance law.

On Tuesday, the second pillar — contributions to candidates — is before the court. The justices will hear arguments on one aspect of contributions: the aggregate limits on contributions to candidates and political parties.

Campaign Contribution Limits

The case was brought by Shaun McCutcheon, a successful Alabama businessman whose real love is conservative politics. In the 2012 election season, McCutcheon gave roughly $33,000 to 16 Republican congressional candidates and a similar amount to Republican Party committees. He wanted to give more, but a federal law caps the aggregate amounts that individuals can give to candidates and political parties. In 2012, those caps were roughly $46,000 for candidates and $70,000 for party committees.

Of course, McCutcheon could spend any amount he wants to by giving to independent groups that have proliferated since Citizens United. These groups raise millions of dollars to spend on candidate elections, but they do so independently and are not supposed to coordinate with the candidate campaigns. McCutcheon, however, doesn't want to give to independent groups; he wants to give directly to candidates and the Republican Party.

As he said in an interview with NPR, "It's just that sometimes it's more advantageous for the donor to donate directly to the campaign."

Just What Do The Limits Prevent?

That advantage is at the heart of the issue before the Supreme Court on Tuesday. In 1974, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress enacted the laws that still form the basic structure for campaign finance regulations. Part of that structure is the aggregate cap, which is intended to prevent circumventing limits on the amount that single donors can pour into campaigns.

The Supreme Court upheld an earlier version of the caps in 1976, and since then it has drawn a consistent line between expenditure limits on the one hand and contribution limits on the other. The distinction is based on the notion that large contributions to candidates pose the threat of "the actuality" and the "appearance" of corruption.

Law

Despite Shutdown, Supreme Court Opens Its Doors For New Term

Thanks to the federal government's partial shutdown, the Bureau of Labor Statistics skipped its monthly Big Reveal at 8:30 a.m. Friday.

There was no September employment report.

Without access to the BLS numbers, data junkies were left to scrounge around for lesser reports. Maybe if they could suck in enough small hits of other statistics, they could feel that old familiar rush?

Nope. Nothing can replace that BLS high.

"You do miss it," said Harry Holzer, Georgetown professor and former chief economist for the Labor Department. "I watch it closely. It's the single best number to explain what's going on" in the U.S. labor market, he said.

The BLS report surveys both employers and households. Also, it comes out monthly, rather than quarterly. Holzer said that frequency provides enough snapshots of wages and hours to create a kind of flowing documentary about jobs.

So here we are — with no new picture to advance the story.

But instead of dwelling on what we don't have, let's think of this as "Faux Friday" — a day offering plenty of data, just not from the BLS. Simply lower your standards, pop open a near-beer and let's go over the almost-important data that we did get this week:

— ADP's payroll report showed a gain of 166,000 private sector jobs for September — in line with what employers had been adding all summer.

— Initial claims for unemployment benefits increased by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 308,000 last week. That number, based on state data, was somewhat better than the expected 314,000 new claims.

— PNC Financial Services Group Inc.'s Autumn Outlook survey of small and medium-size businesses showed 16 percent intend to add full-time employees during the next six months, while 8 percent plan to cut workers.

— The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas said companies announced plans for 40,289 layoffs in September, down 20 percent from August.

— Glassdoor, an online site for jobs, released its quarterly Employment Confidence Survey, conducted online by Harris Interactive. That showed only 15 percent of employees are afraid of being laid off, the lowest percentage since the fourth quarter of 2008.

The Government Shutdown

Without Key Jobs Data, Markets And Economists Left Guessing