I know that such a bill was proposed, but was it ever passed? I agree that a shutdown similar to the one that happened in '95-'96 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governmen...) will definitely occur if the ceiling is not raised immediately, but Republicans could conceivably double down their bets and refuse to raise the ceiling until entitlements are affected, which would certainly happen before the president made a decision to curtail current military activities. Does anybody have a reference to the rate at which outflows currently exceed tax revenues to give us an idea of when that point might be reached?