The latest standoff over the U.S. debt ceiling, resolved just days before the government faced a devastating default, has prompted some to call for the country to ditch its self-imposed borrowing limit. Though the showdown unnerved investors and prompted threats of a second U.S. debt downgrade in a little over a decade, proposals to abolish the debt ceiling have gained little traction in Congress in recent years. This year's debt standoff and the past two major ones -- in 2011 and 2013 -- all played out with a similar power divide in Washington, with a Democratic president and Senate majority, and Republican control of the House of Representatives.