If the situation seems familiar, it’s because, yes, we’ve been here before. The federal government is butting up against it’s debt limit (again) and (again) a Republican House majority is gearing up for a showdown over it with the sitting Democratic president. There are, nonetheless, a few differences from 2011.

Part of the deal that U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy made in order to be known as Speaker McCarthy was to refuse to move a raise in the debt ceiling unless concrete spending concessions were made by President Joe Biden. President Biden, meanwhile has said that, unlike his former boss, he would not, never, no way, negotiate on the debt ceiling.

It’s an impasse, sure, but one which one side or the other will win, because, as we all know, the debt ceiling is going to be raised. The money has been borrowed, spent and is now owed, and defaulting on it would be morally wrong, wreak havoc in the bond markets and, far more to the point, be politically suicidal for whichever party is blamed for it. And let’s face it, Republicans have historically not proven to be particularly adept at deflecting the blame.

This is not to say the ballooning debt is not an enormous problem. It is, and one which desperately needs to be arrested. The United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio, which responsible economists tell us ought not exceed 20%, is now around 100%, or $24 trillion, and is on track to hit 185% of GDP – $137 Trillion – by 2052. To put that in sobering perspective, the debt level in Weimar Germany in 1919 that directly led to hyperinflation and the collapse of the German currency was a mere 50% of that country’s GDP.

The interest payments on all our debt is eating up a greater and greater chunk of the federal budget, to the detriment of the things the government should be spending money on – like, say, mounting our national defense or making sure the national air traffic control system doesn’t go haywire. It is pure economic malfeasance on the part of the federal government.

But what to do, what to do?

Well, in 2011 what they did was hammer out a deal that capped both military and domestic spending; but the “sequester” nearly crippled our military, the promised entitlement reforms never manifested, and the caps were eventually negotiated away. The world is a much more dangerous place today than it was in 2011, with Russian aggression in Ukraine, the constant threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and Iran getting closer to the bomb while everyone is looking elsewhere.

The primary GOP proposal is prioritization – legislation that would prioritize debt repayment, while protecting social security, Medicare and a handful of government functions. That means a lot of things would go unfunded until summer. God knows there are an awful lot of things the federal government spends tax dollars on that it shouldn’t, but who wants to wager that the discussion will be about ludicrous subsidies, pointless studies and bureaucratic engorgement rather than, say, the air traffic control system, the Border Patrol, and food inspection? Me neither.

Barry Poulson, the University of Colorado economist, writing in National Review with his Johns Hopkins University colleague Steve Hanke, proposes a solution he has been espousing for several years – that the U.S. adopt a system like Switzerland’s “debt brake,” introduced via Constitutional referendum in 2001, by an 85% margin. The Swiss debt brake caps federal spending growth at the potential long-tern growth rate of the economy, measured by the average revenue increases over a multi-year period – sort of a more-flexible version of TABOR. This permits spending to exceed revenues, but only for a time, requiring any deficits to be offset by surplus revenues collected and saved for that purpose over the cycle, balancing the budget over time. Thus, it appeals to both Keynesian and supply-side economists.

I have no illusion that such a proposal stands much chance of implementation in the near future, but it deserves exploration. In the meantime, the House GOP has an opportunity, and should pursue it, but carefully. Republicans ought not abandon that greatest of post-war political insights: that the greatest calamities of the modern world are statist in origin – the main axle of American conservative thought – but nor should they be tempted to sound or think like anarchists. They need to be smart, thoughtful, prudent and coordinated in picking their spending battles. Failure to do so will fuel both the nation’s crippling debt problem and the fortunes of those Republicans who possess none of those traits.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.