The debt ceiling dispute is not about spending more federal money.
It is rather, whether to authorize the Treasury to borrow more money to pay for expenditures already approved by Congress.
What is happening at the moment is that certain politicians are using the debt ceiling mandate to force longer-term issues; issues that cannot be won on their merits through the normal democratic process.
We all can argue whether federal expenditures should be cut, which ones, when, and by how much, and whether revenues should be raised or not. But using a non-negotiable statutory requirement as political leverage is demagoguery. Indeed, it is worse than demagoguery — it is extortion.
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(The debt ceiling was raised seven times under George W. Bush, five times under Bill Clinton, five times under George H.W. Bush, 16 times under Ronald Reagan. It has already been raised three times under Barack Obama.)