Government debt and financial obligations have been created by Congressional vote as bills are voted on and become law. Never in the history of government prior to the recent clown circus in Congress has the debt ceiling vote been used to leverage defunding legislation that has already been voted on and passed by both houses.
Debt ceiling and budget bills (and all other bills) should be limited to only those purposes of the original bill. No branch of congress should keep bills from being voted on and all bills should be clean bills, free of unrelated amendments. This would help prevent bills from becoming contaminated with special interest funding and would allow them to be judged solely on their own merits.