Often hear liberals say that they don't want to raise taxes, they just want to reform the tax system. It always sounded like weaselly nonsense to me, but Ezra Klein explains:

• $500 billion to people to buy houses that they would buy anyway.
• $400 billion to reward people for making money by investing and earning capital gains and dividends rather than by going to work and taking their income in wages
• $20 billion to employers who subsidize their workers' transportation costs
• $200 billion to people who make charitable deductions
• $700 billion to employers who offer health insurance to their employees

Midway through my excavation, however, when I was really just getting warmed up, I realized I had made a mistake. I wasn't looking at the federal budget -- I was looking at the U.S. tax code. So cutting all those costly programs wouldn't count as cutting spending to Republicans in Washington. It would count as raising taxes.

Also, if you like Ezra Klein to explain things to you, here's the debt ceiling issue explained in a one post, including its history. One thing he doesn't mention that i think is worth repeating is that the debt ceiling was raised 7 times during the Bush II administration.