Well in the nation's capitol, there has been an ongoing debate on how to manage the prolific amount of debt that has accumulated since the beginning of the war on terror. Now republicans who formerly supported(11 times!) the raising of the debt ceiling under the Bush administration until it reached trillions of dollars, now stand firmly and relentlessly against raising it further because they feel that we should manage and pay off the debt we already have... but with proper consequences that would follow suit. The reason being is that republicans plan on paying off the programs that have the most debt such as medicare, social security, etc. by appropriating funds from other federal programs such as the dept. of education, Federal highway admin., and anything that has to do with paying or giving aid to veterans and active duty soldiers.
Now under that plan, we might be able to pay a few bills(at the expense of education, infrastructure, and veterans) but if we refuse to raise the debt ceiling any further, it could create a major catastrophe in our economy and choke off access to other credit markets. In other words, it could cause another great depression. Now the republican party has been repeatedly warned about the consequences by every economist in America, but they have resorted to just covering their ears and hiding under the covers hoping that the 13 trillion dollar monster that
THEY created will just disappear into thin air. It seems that there is no good solution to this, because the plans of the democrats are to just keep on raising it while crossing their fingers hoping that the global market will pan out in their favor by having an increase in consumer spending. But now we must sit and watch helplessly as our "leaders" who caused all our problems destroy themselves trying to solve them.
The moral of the story? Prolonged war is never a good thing, and the billions of dollars a month we spent fighting this decade long "War on Terror" is finally catching up to us. So choose your battles wisely, kids, because you might end up dying at the end.