Goldman's Alec Phillips warns that the upcoming fight over lifting the debt ceiling could be harder than the 2012 fight, which was brutal and confidence crushing. Phillips writes: Unfortunately, the upcoming increase may be more difficult to enact than the increase in 2011. Few spending cuts had been enacted before the previous increase, which left lawmakers with several areas of the budget from which to pull potential savings. Congress eventually settled on $2.1 trillion in spending cuts, essentially all coming from a reduction in spending appropriated by Congress (about $900bn from caps on "discretionary" spending, ... (full story)