It doesn't seem logical but we get to keep our credit ratings sky high if we elect to raise the debt limit, which is still a default but bloomberg reports 38 out of 40 economists predict that there won't be a default. At least the kind of default that would occur if we didn't raise it, and even though if we do, we're defaulting, we still somehow keep the charade going by robbing Peter to pay Paul after Peter paid Paul, who, in this case, is the United States Federal Reserve with Peter being US citizens and the Treasury.
The only thing that could help is another $80 billion profitable trading month by the Fed on our own paper, but reading the bloomberg article it seems reasonable that we will come to some agreement, whether or not we wait until the last second, something will happen most likely being an increase in the debt limit and funny money accounting tricks to produce fiscal spending cuts.