Rep. Paul Ryan today on the need for Congress to once again increase the debt ceiling next year:

We’re going to meet in our retreats after the holidays and discuss exactly what it is we’re going to try to get for this…We’re going to decide what it is we’re going to accomplish out of this debt limit fight.

Well, excuse me fer livin’ but you don’t get something special for just doing your job.  Once I arrive at work, I don’t knock on my boss’s door and ask for a bonus because I showed up.  That’s the least part of my job.  Just like if you’re a member of Congress, not defaulting on the national debt is the least part of your job.

After mistakenly trying it the other way, President Obama recently made it clear that he’d no longer negotiate on the debt ceiling and I can’t imagine why he’d shift tactics.  And yes, he did some ill-advised grandstanding on the issue when he was a Senator; that’s also an old tradition, done in the context of clear bipartisan intentions to raise the ceiling, as occurred uncontested–without threats of defaults to extract givebacks–18 times under President Reagan.

I get it.  They want something out of the deal.  Well, here’s what the majority of their constituents want: do your freakin’ job like the rest of us and quickly implement a clean increase to the debt ceiling.