Repeated enough times, and it takes on a life of its own. People don’t understand the federal budget, budget politics, or how appropriations work.

Congress sets the budget. The House makes the appropriations bills and after consulting with the Senate and White House a spending bill is enacted (the terms of which can be quite different from what the Senate, House, or WH recommends). The money appropriated is money that the WH and other federal agencies and departments are legally obligated to act on.

The debt ceiling is a completely separate matter. It’s the authorization to spend above a certain level.

Congress enacts budgets knowing full well what the debt ceiling is and that they have spending priorities. The GOP is intent upon engaging in a back door cut of spending - spending that they previously approved.

It’s a second bite of the apple and it stinks to its core because the same GOP that claims to be fiscally responsible then acts in a most irresponsible fashion by threatening a default on the bills the government is legally obligated to pay.

The restaurant analogy is a good one:

D and R go to a restaurant. They decide on the menu, dishes to share, and pay for the meal plus tip on credit card. Both sign the bill.

Later, before the credit card bill arrives, the R calls up the credit card company and says they don’t want to pay the bill. They claim that they want to cut up the credit card and have no intention of paying anything over what was owed prior to the restaurant meal.

The restaurant and others on that credit card bill would be screwed out of monies obligated to be paid.

That’s what the GOP is intent upon doing and they’re going to play with US credit along the way - as well as screw thousands of private businesses that do business with the federal and state governments (via transfer payments that are held up should the debt ceiling kick in and defaults occur).