"Imagine if the United States economy was a skyscraper, and federal government is an elevator filling floor after floor with our debt. Now consider our debt ceiling...it's really not a ceiling at all, it's just another floor."
As Rep. McHenry points out, the debt crisis is not some abstract idea with no effect on the daily lives of Americans. Doing nothing about the crisis will have a negative and very real effect on American families and small businesses, and simply raising the debt ceiling without real spending cuts makes it ineffective in restraining government spending.
Now is not the time to give in to President Obama, whose insistence on raising revenue in a time when federal spending is about as high as it's ever been will only increase the burden on American families and let those officials responsible for the crisis off the hook.