EV, what reality are you living in? The pubbie HOUSE could say not one penny more, and the dem senate would guffaw themselves all the way to China.
Not one penny gets spent without the U.S. House of Representatives.
You might want to ponder that.
The Senate can guffaw all they want, but if the pubbie House refuses to increase the debt ceiling, then it cannot be increased. There is NOTHING the Senate or Obama can do about it but moan & complain. That sir, is “not one penny more”.
Now, you can speculate about who gets the blame when gov’t grinds to a partial halt, & who loses in 2012 as a result, but what I said above is not speculation, it is fact.
I will speculate about one thing. If the TEA Party conservatives stop an increase of the debt ceiling, they will be easily reelected in 2012 by the very same people who sent them to WDC in 2010 - PO’ed Americans who believe enough is enough & not one penny more.