White House says raising debt cap unilaterally would be suspect

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday rejected as lacking in credibility any steps by President Barack Obama to raise the country's debt ceiling on his own should Congress fail to do so before a mid-October deadline. "Even if the president could ignore the debt ceiling, the fact that there is significant controversy around the president's authority to act unilaterally means that it would not be a credible alternative to Congress raising the debt ceiling and would not be taken seriously by the global economy and markets," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. (Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Eric Beech)