The video below is of Speaker of the House John Boehner on the HOuse floor, quoting a White House official/staffer in saying that Barack Obama, the president "would rather default than negotiate."
That is the problem right there.
For the first two years of Obama's presidency, Democrats controlled the House, Senate and Obama in the White House. Anything he wanted, Congress simply gave him, rubber-stamped everything, passed Obamacare against the opposition of the American people.
In 2010, the American people, sick and tired of it, turned out in record numbers for a midterm election and handed the House of Representatives to the Republicans in the largest turnover of seats seen in 70 years.
Via Wiki
Approximately 82.5 million people voted. The Democratic Party suffered massive defeats in many national and state level elections, with many seats switching to Republican Party control. The Republican Party gained 63 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, recapturing the majority, and making it the largest seat change since 1948 and the largest for any midterm election since the 1938 midterm elections. The Republicans gained six seats in the U.S. Senate, expanding its minority, and also gained 680 seats in state legislative races, to break the previous majority record of 628 set by Democrats in the post-Watergate elections of 1974. This left Republicans in control of 25 state legislatures, compared to the 15 still controlled by Democrats. After the election, Republicans took control of 29 of the 50 State Governorships.
The American people handed Obama, Democrats and Republicans a clear mandate, NEGOTIATE.
Obama refuses to do so or he simply does not know how to do so.
FLASHBACK: Obama in his own words on raising the debt limit, from 2006 on the Senate Floor:
"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."---- BARACK OBAMA- 2006 Senate floor speech
FLASHBACK- Obama calls Bush "unpatriotic" over debt increase.