We are not going to default.

There are two types of spending in our government. Discretionary and mandatory. Mandatory is supposedly important things like defense spending. Discretionary is everything else.

When we hit the limit discretionary spending gets cut while mandatory does not. We call this a government shutdown. It's happened a few times. It's not a big deal. Everyone gets back pay in the end when the Republicans inevitably cave. A few useless government offices are closed for a few days. Nobody notices.

Importantly, repaying the debt is mandatory spending. It does not get cut.

If the debt ceiling debate can't be resolved at any point then a bunch of useless government employees are kind of fired.

It'd be a huge win.