This week, I handed my Focus page over to the graphics department for their wonderful Native American series. In return, I agreed to build a two-part series written by our Washington bureau regarding the looming battle on the budget and the debt limit. My contribution here was to find a way to sprinkle the visuals throughout the text in hopes we could keep it lively and inviting. I started out by replacing a few paragraphs about previous shutdowns with the chart you see down the right side. This was the first of two pages. Sept. 24, 2013