In order to purportedly avoid these outcomes, some House Republicans have pushed this idea of “debt prioritization,” meaning they’ll allow the Treasury to borrow only enough to pay for certain obligations but not others, say for Social Security and interest payments but not any of those other debts noted above.

This idea may work in the fantasy land of Capitol Hill economics, but in the real world, borrowers don’t get to choose which obligations they meet and which ones they default on. Paying some debts and not others avoids neither default nor the economic consequences noted above. Investors seeking higher risk premiums would not be assuaged if Social Security payments are made but Medicare payments are not. As budget analyst Joel Friedman put it, “By appearing to make a default legitimate and manageable, [prioritization] would heighten the risk that one will actually occur.”

In other words, prioritization is just Republican for default.

End of the day, I find it almost unimaginable that we’ll let the hard right drive us into this abyss. But the fact that we’re even arguing about it is a small victory for those for whom government dysfunction is a means to an end. These are the representatives who signal to their constituents: “Washington is broken. Send me there and I’ll make sure it stays that way.”

For these people, dysfunction is not some temporary, regrettable diversion from the goal of working together to solve problems. It is a long-term strategy, a tactic to discredit and then shrink government, with the ultimate goal of cutting taxes on behalf of their wealthy funders and deregulating the businesses that support them.