Josh Marshall : But for future reference let's remember that the entire concept of a debt limit ceiling is ridiculous. If the Congress votes to spend more than it will take in in tax revenues, that is a vote to borrow money . Period. For Congress to vote once to borrow the money and then have to vote again to borrow the same money is silly. That's not to say this has any constitutional relevance; Congress has broad latitude to do stupid things. But this was always a silly way of doing business -- which is the reason why no other major country has a similar procedure -- a time bomb waiting for one of the two parties to decide to play Russian Roulette with the nation. Right now, the House is moving to reject Harry Reid's stupendous giveaway to conservatives before it is even passed (assuming they can get past a Republican filibuster). There seem to be two easy fixes to this: the President invokes the 14th amendment , or mints a couple trillion-dollar platin