No. of Recommendations: 3
I have read that Democrats consider it a political calculation. They are/were afraid that doing so without Republican help would give the Republicans a ready made campaign issue ('wildly spending Dems'), and that doing so would give them Dems all of the liabilities without any of the positives. I.e. if there isn't a 'debt ceiling crisis' nobody notices and the Dems don't get any credit, if there is a crisis then everybody notices and the Republicans get at least some of the blame, if not all.
It's an odd calculation, but then politics is often odd, eh?
Bottom line: they didn't want to be stuck with a losing election issue for doing the right thing. I think the definition of Pyrrhic victory is having a winning issue at the expense of destroying the country.
