They're waiting until the last minute, as I said in another comment earlier. The point was that they aren't giving the Democrats what they want, and Democrats control the Senate and presidency.

I disagree. They've been acting for months to solve this. And they have, for the last few weeks, been giving the Democrats what they want - a debt limit increase and smaller cuts.

The Tea Party was unwilling to raise the debt ceiling at all unless they got exactly what they wanted with nothing else given in return.

I disagree. They didn't even want to raise the debt ceiling. As it stands, the only thing that has remained off the table have been tax increases.