The Looming Debt Ceiling: Is the Shutdown a Preview of a Bigger Crisis?

The current government shutdown, as damaging as it is, may only be the opening act for a much larger and more dangerous crisis looming on the horizon: the next showdown over the US debt ceiling. The same political dynamics and hardball tactics that have paralyzed Congress this week are likely to be repeated, with far more catastrophic consequences for the global economy.
The shutdown fight is a battle over discretionary spending for the upcoming year. The debt ceiling is about paying the bills for money the government has already spent. A failure to raise the debt ceiling would lead to a default on US government debt, an event that would trigger a global financial crisis.
The current stalemate shows that both parties are willing to use must-pass fiscal deadlines as leverage to achieve their policy goals. Democrats are doing it now with the ACA. Republicans have repeatedly done it in the past with the debt ceiling, demanding spending cuts in exchange for not causing a default.
The intractable nature of the shutdown fight is therefore a terrifying preview of what could happen when the stakes are infinitely higher. If lawmakers cannot even agree to keep the government open, it is hard to be optimistic about their ability to responsibly manage the nation’s debt obligations.
The world is watching this shutdown not just as a standalone event, but as a test case for whether the US political system is still capable of avoiding self-inflicted economic disaster. The results so far are not encouraging.