Debt ceiling

Megan McArdle has a very nice summary of the likely effects of not raising the debt ceiling (an unlikely outcome in my view - I predict another short term delay in the deadline) and of dithering about raising the deadline and demonstrating institutional and personal failure at the highest levels while doing so.

It seems to me that it is not really that hard to do the two things one wants to do: not cut current spending too much but cut future spending a lot in a way that has some credibility, which is to say in a way that is hard to reverse.