The Republicans shouldn't be political playing games with the federal debt limit. As the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan watchdog group, has explained: The debt is from past policy decisions, and those obligations won't go away if we ignore them. They'll continue to accrue.

"Refusing to pay some or all of its bills would not be an act of fiscal responsibility," the group wrote in a news release. "It would be turning the federal government into a deadbeat."