Every day that the partial Government shutdown goes on the more I’m realizing this could be a real game changer.

First off, unlike what Obama’s handlers thought would happen, Obama’s approval rating is going down.  The State Run Media is doing their best to shield him but the Low Information Voters may be waking up.  Obama’s overall approval rating is now at 37% according to the AP article and that’s not good considering the large megaphone POTUS wields.

There are now dissentions in the ranks as John Stewart grilled HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Wolf Blitzer is thinking it may be a good idea to do what the House suggested – delay the individual mandate of Obamacare for a year.  The Horror!

But the real light at the end of the tunnel that I see is coming up to the Debt ceiling limit drop dead date of 17-OCT-13.  If the House Republicans can stick to their guns then they may be able to push through this with some real budget reform and cut our Federal spending in a meaningful way (which is the goal anyway).

Failing to raise the debt ceiling limit does not have to be a catastrophe for the US.  Here is a great article showing how the scare mongering of the Left about the US defaulting on its debt if the debt ceiling isn’t raised is just a lie.  Here’s the money quote (emphasis mine):

“The White House wants people to believe genuine default is likely even though tax receipts this fiscal year are expected to be more than $3 trillion and interest on the debt is projected to be only $237 billion. In other words, the Treasury will collect more than 12 times as much revenue as needed to pay interest on the debt. Even someone like me, with my well-known views on the incompetence of the federal government, thinks that the Treasury Department will have no problem figuring out how to avoid default.”

Just like many American families have faced in the past, the US Federal government has reached a point where their credit cards are maxed out and they no longer have enough money to continue spending to a lifestyle that they’ve been accustomed.  If the Federal Government were a typical American family then they’d sit down and itemize their ‘must haves’ and eliminate spending on their ‘like to haves’ so that their creditors are paid and their spending is less than or equal to their revenue.  Speaking from personal experience, this process is not fun but it is necessary.

The Federal government has needed to do this for decades and we’ve heard politicians promise of going through the budget ‘line by line’ to figure this out but it’s never happened.  Since the ‘line by line’ approach appears too difficult to do then there is another way and it will happen when we reach our debt limit.

If you want to find out what spending is ‘essential’ then one way to do it is cut all spending off and then wait to see where the pain comes.  One by one the pain shows up and then Congress and the POTUS can approve that spending.  If the pain never comes from a budget line item, like funding for NPR, then cut it out permanently.   After looking over the list of all Federal government agencies and employees here, you can’t tell me there is not fat to cut.

Force the Federal government to prioritize spending, make meaningful cuts to entitlement reforms and balance a budget.  We can do all that while paying the interest on our debt and reverse the disasterous course we’ve been on for decades.

But all of this won’t happen if the Republicans cave and allow an extension to the debt limit.  We must hit this debt limit to solve our problems.  I don’t see any other way.  Let it burn!