This is addressing all debt, not just "Constitutional house keeping" from the Civil War
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Obama and the White House gave up on it too quickly in 2011, section 4 has rarely if ever been litigated and not having this settled is part of the reason as to why we are where are today.
With the Republican House threatening to not raise the debt ceiling and causing the nation to default, this is the prime time to litigate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Section 4 confirmed the legitimacy of all U.S. public debt appropriated by the Congress. It also confirmed that neither the United States nor any state would pay for the loss of slaves or debts that had been incurred by the Confederacy. For example, during the Civil War several British and French banks had lent large sums of money to the Confederacy to support its war against the Union.[152] In Perry v. United States (1935), the Supreme Court ruled that under Section 4 voiding a United States bond "went beyond the congressional power."[153]
The debt-ceiling crisis in 2011 raised the question of what powers Section 4 gives to the President, an issue that remains unsettled.[154]
Some, such as legal scholar Garrett Epps, fiscal expert Bruce Bartlett and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have argued that a debt ceiling may be unconstitutional and therefore void as long as it interferes with the duty of the government to pay interest on outstanding bonds and to make payments owed to pensioners (that is, Social Security recipients).[155][156] Legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen has argued that Section 4 gives the President unilateral authority to raise or ignore the national debt ceiling, and that if challenged the Supreme Court would likely rule in favor of expanded executive power or dismiss the case altogether for lack of standing.[157] Erwin Chemerinsky, professor and dean at University of California, Irvine School of Law, has argued that not even in a "dire financial emergency" could the President raise the debt ceiling as "there is no reasonable way to interpret the Constitution that [allows him to do so]".[158]
Regarding this, I don't believe anyone can argue that the House "has their act together."
As Obama said, it makes it look like 'we don't have our act together.' Credit, debts, loans, currencies and markets depend on the confidence of those engaged on either side of a transaction.
Furthermore even if the White House can't raise the debt ceiling the Constitutional challenge against a debt ceiling needs to be made, or the nation will continue to fall in to this pattern of "not having our act together."
This takes nothing away from Congresses' ability to control the power of the purse but there is no logical reason to have a debt ceiling as it can only lead to continued crisis.
= new reply since forum marked as read
what kind "choice" is that? 
- Which is not unexpected given that this nation's foundations were laid with the bricks of liberty and freedom but weakly held together with the mortar of racism and slavery.