Final Word: What’s worse than a shutdown? The debt ceiling

If you thought the government shutdown was bad, get ready for something a lot worse: the debt ceiling.

John Boehner said he has no intention of letting the government default on its debt, but he said it while maintaining that he will use the debt ceiling showdown to again try to force a negotiation on Obamacare.

You can bemoan the closure of national parks or the layoff of civil defense workers, but if the U.S. defaults on its debt, we as private citizens will feel the effects right away. And not because we can’t get into the Smithsonian, either.

Because we can’t buy homes. Or get loans. Big business as we know it will stop.

As much as I hate to point to polls — because I think, too often, politicians rely on them to find out how they should feel about a certain issue — I think it might be a good idea for them to check in and recognize that Americans couldn’t have a lesser opinion of the job they are doing.

But if the U.S. defaults on it’s debt, it won’t matter what Americans think of Congress. We will have another recession to worry about. It will happen fast and take a long time to recover from.

Give up on fixing Obamacare. What it costs is nothing compared to what a default will cost. And it will cost all of us.