While it is alarming that in three days our nation will not have enough money to pay all its debts, it is refreshing that the real debate in Washington on avoiding the partial default that would cause is between Republicans who want significant spending cuts and other Republicans who want even bigger cuts.
So at least the discussion is going in the right direction. It certainly should not be focused on President Barack Obama's desire to raise taxes and promise cuts that may never materialize.
At issue is increasing our supposed "debt limit" from its current $14.3 trillion -- in other words, borrowing even more money and adding to the debt so that Washington can continue to pay its bills.
While even some Democrats have abandoned the president's call for making tax hikes part of a debt limit increase, they are not proposing spending cuts that are anywhere near sufficient.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has presented a plan that would count as a "cut" reductions in spending on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the military drawdown in Afghanistan and Iraq is already planned and accounted for, and the money Reid says he would cut wasn't going to be spent anyway. That's just budget gimmickry. Plus, since those dubious savings account for more than half of Reid's already too-small spending-reduction plan, his proposal obviously is not a serious approach to confronting our country's out-of-control spending.
That has put the ball in the court of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, had an initial plan that didn't gain enough support from the most conservative wing of the Republican Party, so he revised it to boost the spending reductions.
The Democrat-run Senate has made it clear it does not want really significant spending cuts. It insists that Republicans should "compromise" -- meaning the GOP should simply accept the Democrats' inadequate plan.
But with the national debt threatening the United States with economic calamity, this is a time for conservatives in Congress to stand firm and reject the big-spending policies that are bankrupting America.