Jack Lew is a very smart guy.

I'm streaming C-SPAN's coverage of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's testimony before the Senate Finance committee, and there is one thing that cannot be denied: Jack Lew is a very smart guy.  He's able to directly confront any topic with facts and careful language at rapid-fire pace, and dominates senators who do not approach his command of the facts.  While these senators are using notes from their staff, Lew is working off memory and knowledge -- it's just an incredible tour de force of intellectual power.

Directly on point: October 17th is NOT the deadline for Congress to act, but is the best estimate of when the Treasury faces an actual shortfall in day-to-day cash.

I do have to say though, Republicans (on the finance committee no less!) continue to conflate Social Security entitlement spending with deficit spending; it is not.  It shouldn't even be part of the conversation on deficits and debt.

Social Security's Trust Fund invests in special bonds; if we reach the point whereupon the Trust Fund is depleted, then zero money goes into those bonds.  At that point, the Trust Fund is no longer investing in federal debt, and thus the debt switches from nonmarketable bonds to publicly-traded bonds.  That's all.

So let's stop this nonsense and let's get the media to stop participating in this ridiculous conflation of debt and social security.

And for what it's worth, Jack Lew is a lot smarter than Tim Geithner.