The Year In Bankruptcy: 2013

The eyes of the financial world were on the U.S. during 2013. The view was dismaying and encouraging in roughly equal parts. The U.S. rang in the new year with a post-last-minute deal to avoid the Fiscal Cliff that kicked negotiations over "sequestration"—$110 billion in across-the-board cuts to military and domestic spending—two months down the road, but raised income taxes (on the wealthiest Americans) for the first time in two decades.

Any spirit of bipartisanship was short-lived. Congress, dysfunctional even by recent standards, fought tooth and nail over nearly everything during 2013. Early in the year, lawmakers failed to engage in meaningful dialogue about raising the nation's debt ceiling, which led to speculation as to whether the U.S. Treasury, under an obscure law meant to apply to commemorative coins, would mint a "trillion-dollar coin" to head off the debt-ceiling battle in Congress.