Jim Fallows latest is a post titled “The Two Sentences That Should Be Part of All Discussion of the Debt Ceiling,”
They are:
1) Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize one single penny in additional public spending.
2) For Congress to “decide whether” to raise the debt ceiling, for programs and tax rates it has already voted into law, makes exactly as much sense as it would for a family to “decide whether” to pay a credit-card bill for goods it has already bought.