This sums it up:

The simplest way to view the debt ceiling debate in Washington is as a struggle over the kind of government we want. If you want a government that runs everything from the student loan business to car companies, then taxes will have to go up.
If you think government is too big already and should start to pull back, then Washington has to change its ways — fast. This is the message I have brought to the White House for more than two years in an effort to persuade President Obama to rein in a government that has lost all sense of limits. This is also why, when those discussions failed to bear fruit, I had hoped an approaching limit to the president’s borrowing power would cause him to think again.
Unfortunately, it was wishful thinking. As it turned out, the president is simply too committed to big government to agree to serious belt-tightening. At the same time, however, the president realizes that most Americans fear government is too big already. That’s why he has tried to portray himself in recent weeks as advocating a “balanced approach.”