The debt ceiling is used as a crisis to shrink government.

They've tried again and again and again. Government gotten smaller yet?

The debt ceiling itself is not a tactic of "crisis". It is an attempt to put limits on government spending. Leaving it to a "crisis" is the successful tactic of those who would and have blown through it time and time again.

I believe the republicans are in full capitulation on this point. Maybe with both chambers of congress they'll feel that they can control the narrative by putting a bill on the president's desk for him to sign or not. But I doubt it.

but a dead body nearly always triggers procedures in the official bureaucracy. The same is not true with attempted murder.

Yeah, but I would think people are pretty motivated to report actual attempts to kill them.

You should always be a bit skeptic that the numbers that you have actually describe reality fully.

I certainly agree with that. Conscious of abstration, etc.