James Fallows has distilled the discussion about the debt ceiling to two sentences:

Here they are:

• Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize one single penny in additional public spending.
• 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.

That is all.

Oh, how I really wish that were the end of it. But the Republicans in Congress, having long ago banished Rhyme and Reason to the Castle in the Air, seem determined once again to fight it once again.