Three days into a government shutdown, Sen. Bernie Sanders said on Thursday that House Speaker John Boehner could break the impasse by letting the House vote on a Senate-passed resolution to fund the government.  Enough Republicans, weary of their own Tea Party fringe, would join Democrats and pass the bill. But Boehner so far has stood with  the far-right group that forced the government shutdown in the first place over a crusade to destroy the Affordable Care Act. Sanders voiced concern that the same tactics by the same small band of extremists could have more dire consequences if the nation’s debt ceiling isn’t raised by mid-October. (The debt ceiling is the amount the government may borrow to pay its bills.) Unless the ceiling is raised, the United States, for the first time in history, could default on its obligations and become “a deadbeat nation,” Sanders told radio host Ed Schultz. “These guys,” the senator warned, “are playing with absolute fire.”

The Treasury Department released a report on Thursday that said a default may result “in a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse.”

Listen to the Ed Schultz interview

Read more about the debt ceiling in The New York Times

Read more about the real world ramifications of the shutdown in The Washington Post