Bruce Bartlett in Economix:

This week, according to the Treasury Department, it will exhaust its “extraordinary” measures to avoid hitting a hard debt ceiling. It is not known precisely the date at which it will lack the cash to pay interest on the national debt, but on the day that happens, the United States will be in default.

The Obama administration and those on Wall Street have long thought that such a prospect was so horrifying that it would necessarily lead to resolution of the current budget impasse. What I don’t think they understand is that there has been a movement under way for some years among right-wing economists and activists not merely to default on the debt, but even to repudiate it.

Read Bartlett’s piece for some history of the pro-default movement.  I’ll just jump to his concluding paragraphs:

Any number of Republicans in Congress have said they will never vote to increase the debt ceiling, no matter what. Others believe the threat of default is the only way to force President Obama to accept their demands, whether it’s an immediate balanced budget or repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Default advocates are a small minority — 10 to 20 percent of the population, according to a poll conducted in the first week of October by AP/GFK – although at present they appear to be the tail wagging the G.O.P. dog. But most Republicans probably share the view that the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, expressed after the 2011 debt showdown.

“I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,” he told The Washington Post. “Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming.”

But hostages sometimes die in the crossfire.