The Senate Republicans wave the white flag:
There has to be another way, and there is. Republicans in the Senate are united in our concern about our nation’s fiscal future. Before we consider saddling our children with even more debt, we must enact significant spending cuts and enforceable caps on future spending. For the long term, to prevent both this Congress and its successors from hijacking the promise of American prosperity, we also need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, like the one we and all 47 Senate Republicans have introduced.
Translation: we must surrender before we are defeated. The morbidly amusing thing is that Senator DeMint is outright telling Americans that Republicans fully intend to “saddle our children with even more debt”, but the good news is that first they are going to promise to spend less money 10 years from now. Again. And as a bonus, they will pass an amendment that will no doubt be as respected by future Congresses as the 2nd Amendment presently is.
No Republican who votes to raise the debt ceiling, for any reason, merits a vote in November.