Don't know much about aggregate market equilibriums

"POLL: MORE AMERICANS FEAR HIGHER NATIONAL DEBT THAN DEFAULT," read the Washington Post headline. Really? "The poll vividly illustrates the dilemma facing lawmakers as they approach an Aug. 2 deadline on the debt ceiling," the story opened ominously. Oh, dear me. Okay, time for a pop quiz. Quick, explain why not raising the US debt-ceiling will risk global economic Armageddon along with gigantic cuts to Medicare and Social Security? Are you staring at that last sentence slack-jawed with knitted brows? Count me among you. But that's just us college educated types. When the pollster calls, surely Joe and Jane Six-Pack will be, like, totally prepared to coherently answer questions about macro-economics, right? In other words, polling the public about the national debt is a meaningless exercise. Yet, pundits and politicians cite such polls to advance their narrow agendas (while the media concocts stories assuming public knowledge where there is none). Is it too much to ask that the media stick to educating the public, and that the Congress do its homework on these complex issues and, you know, start behaving like a body of leaders acting in the best interest of the nation?