What’s up with Republicans’ brinkmanship on the debt ceiling?

In 2011, House Republicans voted down a bill to raise the debt limit unless the government slashed its annual spending. The battle actually led to the U.S. credit rating being downgraded for the first time in the country’s history. Since then, there have been pretty regular fights over the debt limit that often take the Treasury Department to the very end of its means. “Each party, when out of power, has taken it as a political hostage,” writes The Washington Post’s Paul Kane, “with Republicans being more ruthless.”