Chris Stirewalt asks that very question at foxnews.com.  I would have to ask the same question in light of the news that the adminiatratiuon had floated the idea of minting a trillion dollar platinum coin, or the idea that the president could simply declare the limit lifted under the ambiguous powers of the 14th Amendment.

The simple solution that might avoid the pending panic is to actually pass a federal budget, or, more specifically, to have the Senate pass a budget for what would only be the second time in the Obama presidency.

Democrats started ditching the budget process back when they controlled both houses of Congress and opted to do so with supermajorities in both chambers. They could have passed budgets but opted not to because, well, budgets these days are real downers.

It’s bad enough when your government is borrowing more than $1 trillion a year – more than one third of its total outlays. It’s way worse when the green-eyeshade team at the Congressional Budget Office go to work on long-term expenditures.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/08/budget-say/#ixzz2HU0dW3gD