I don't understand why this time it's different than every other debt ceiling show. Republicans refuse, Democrats call them a bunch of names, there's a "government shutdown" where about 5% of the federal government is furloughed - the things most visible and painful to the average citizen like passport renewals, immigration, national parks etc... and then the Republicans admit defeat and everything opens up again.
The government shutdowns have been over failures to pass a budget. We have never failed to raise the debt ceiling yet [0]
[0] Unless you count forcing the treasury department to take extraordinary measures, which has happened several times; and has been going on since January.
