House Republicans are divided about the crucial debt limit vote, which they will face early in the next Congress. Some of the remaining establishment Republicans, including the incoming Speaker John Boehner, want the US to follow through on its obligations. The incoming tea party Republicans, however, have no problem bathing the country in fire:

But some of the incoming Republicans, such as Rep.-elect Tim Scott of South Carolina, a rising party star, have made it clear they wouldn’t support raising the debt limit because of their concern about federal spending.

“The vote will garner a lot of attention and provoke a lot of pain and anxiety, but there are consequences to all votes,” Mr. Scott said. “The question is, when are we going to stop the way we are going? I think we have to stop it now.”

During this year’s Congressional campaign, many of the GOP newcomers attacked their Democratic opponents as spendthrifts for past votes to raise the debt limit. Wisconsin Republican Reid Ribble, for example, who eventually defeated incumbent Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen, blasted Mr. Kagen for voting to increase the ceiling in February, calling the debt “unconscionable” and “insane.” Mr. Ribble couldn’t be reached to comment [...]

Rep.-elect Bill Johnson of Ohio said those who ran on such messages didn’t intend to reverse themselves now. “Most of us agreed that to increase the limit would be a betrayal of what we told voters we would do,” he said.

If Boehner actually wants this vote, I don’t think there’s a whole lot to worry about here. He’d get upwards of 180 Democrats in support and would only have to find 40 or so from his side of the aisle. There’s a path to allowing the tea partiers to stand firm on their principles while still getting the debt limit raised.

However, the most likely scenario is for Boehner to use the leverage he has to extract significant spending cuts in exchange for the vote. If those cuts are draconian enough that House Democrats refuse to support them, then we could see an impasse.

And that would have catastrophic consequences for the nation and the world, potentially setting off a global financial panic. This, of course, seems to be the preferred position of the politics-of-economic-destruction Republicans, as emphasized today by Paul Krugman.

The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it’s doing the governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party’s cooperation — cooperation that won’t be forthcoming [...]

How does this end? Mr. Obama is still talking about bipartisan outreach, and maybe if he caves in sufficiently he can avoid a federal shutdown this spring. But any respite would be only temporary; again, the G.O.P. is just not interested in helping a Democrat govern.

My sense is that most Americans still don’t understand this reality. They still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come together to do what’s necessary. But that was another country.

It’s hard to see how this situation is resolved without a major crisis of some kind.

I think the Republican brand is crisis, at this point.