The debt limit is back

Senate Republicans dramatically changed their party rules to take a hard line on the debt limit in the coming months. Democrats don't care.

In fact, the Democratic majority says it has no intention of negotiating with Republicans bent on slashing spending as a condition for avoiding default after the July 31 deadline. Democrats say they won't haggle with the minority party over the faith and credit of the United States, citing lessons from the presidency of Barack Obama.

This is really about who gets taxes and who gets goodies. Debt is about making long term payments for government goods that lost money during the last round of spending.  Generally small states do not want their goodies crowded out by sudden interest rates hikes, and we just had one of those this year. But this is also about Texas protecting their oil exports from taxes. Taxes and debt limit, go together like soup and sandwich.