Look, on a political spectrum of extreme rightwing craziness to extreme leftwing craziness, if I take a position of dead-in-the-center-perfect-reasonableness and then negotiate with an extreme leftwing crazy, I know which way that conversation is going to go. It will drift to the Left. We've been doing that for decades. Our country is a right-of-center country, but our government is basically a socialist government. That's because Republicans start from a moderate position, and then negotiate with extreme Leftwing crazies.
I want to deliberately take a crazy rightwing position and start from there, and I think it's worth it. Gingrich blew it in 1995, because he blinked. Reagan won the Cold War because he made the other guy blink.
I'm not reasonable on the issue. I think being reasonable on this issue is stupid.
We will just agree to disagree. In any event, it is not going to happen. Dems and Reps will vote to increase the debt ceiling because it is the only way our government can continue to operate. We need to go after the cause of the problem, not the symptom.