Earlier this year, White House had asked Congress to raise the US debt ceiling.  While almost everyone agrees that raising the debt ceiling is necessary, the talks on the increase to the US debt ceiling have continued for weeks so far with little success, this little success being the fact that we are not in default yet.  Here are 10 reasons why the negotiations had dragged on for so long:

1)  Both Republicans and Democrats were hoping that Greece defaults first so they could see what would actually happen in the case of default.

2)  It is extremely difficult to find a time to negotiate when everyone’s schedule is filled with press-conferences set up to blame the other party for not negotiating in good faith.

3)  It took both Republican and Democratic Congressmen a while to realized that in the case of default they would not get their salaries.  But then each had realized that in the case of default the members of other party won’t get paid, too!

4)  Republicans understand the importance of physical activity and use every opportunity to walk out of negotiations.

5)  A Republican-majority Congress was busy trying to pass as many insane plans as possible before the deadline.

6)  After the House Majority leader Eric Cantor allegedly stormed out of the negotiations, causing the media to predict the imminent default and shaking the stock market, the parties agreed to install a bathroom inside the negotiation room so that the stock market does not drop by 500 points every time one of them needs to use the toilet.

7)  The parties had to sidetrack into the negotiations on whether to pay for the bathroom installation by raising taxes or by entitlements cuts.

8)  It’s a well known fact that Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform organization had convinced almost every congressional Republican to sign “no new taxes” pledge.  However, he had also convinced them to sign a much lesser-known pledge to behave like obstinate assholes.

9)  By manufacturing and prolonging the crisis, both parties hoped to create additional news media jobs.

10)  The Republican party was trying to figure out a way to make the US Government to go into default so that the Democrats get blamed for it.