O tempora, o mores! O Cicero, if thou couldst be with us now! The corruption of our age is approaching that of your own! But who speaks for the ancient Roman—and modern American!—virtues of civic duty and personal responsibility?

The Republican members of the House of Representatives, that’s who. Only one group of public officials has behaved in recent weeks as the elected representatives of the people in a great republic should: the House Republicans. The federal government has a problem. We’re hitting a debt ceiling limit passed into law last year by the Democratic Congress, and signed by President Obama. We’re doing so because of appropriations passed by that same Democratic Congress, and signed by that same Democratic president. Have the president and Senate Democrats proposed any actual legislation to deal with this problem? No.