There's been some talk recently about whether Republicans really have the stomach for a debt-ceiling fight, whose ultimate outcome could be a default on payments to government bond-holders. Even Newt "Voice of Reason" Gingrich predicted on MSNBC that the GOP won't go through with it: "The whole national financial system is going to come in to Washington and on television, and say: 'Oh my God, this will be a gigantic heart attack, the entire economy of the world will collapse. You guys will be held responsible.' And they'll cave."

But Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey isn't having any of it.

Republicans, he told conservative talk-radio host Laura Ingraham this morning, must use leverage "on some item that the president really has to have, and really badly wants." And "The president absolutely ... wants to have a whole lot more borrowing authority."