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America pays its bills. It always has. It always will. The fact that Washington is now debating whether to honor its debts and obligations, then, should come as a surprise. But playing political football with a necessary vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling has become as predictable as a Twitter rant from Charlie Sheen.

Once our country is fully engulfed in a debt crisis, our economy will be torn apart, and every American will be a victim of the federal government's failure to prevent this disaster.

You know, we've got to be responsible about our debt. We don't want the United States to ever be a dead beat, and not be able to pay its bills, either to our soldiers who are fighting or to Social Security recipients.

Stimulus spending, permanent bailouts, government takeovers, and federal mandates have all failed our nation. America's employers are afraid to invest in an economy racked with uncertainty over what Washington's next set of rules, regulations, mandates, and tax hikes will look like.

The United States is at a critical juncture in time. Our government is riddled with historic debt, and the limited resources of philanthropic and non-profit efforts cannot meet the scale of social challenges we face with necessary force.

Too many Americans are out of work, and our debt is out of control.

The bill that job creators and out-of-work Americans need us to pass is the one that ensures taxes won't go up - one that says Americans and small-business owners won't get hit with more bad news at the end of the year.

We must take the time to do what needs to be done now, what is right, instead of passing a bad bill.

The Congress is a dysfunctional institution; it's broken. One of our three branches of government is broken.

Challenges of historic import threaten America's future. Action on the deficit, economy, energy, health care and much more is imperative, yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed.