Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sounded the warning bell on the debt ceiling once again last week, writing a letter asking Congress “to provide certainty and stability to the economy and financial markets by acting to raise the debt limit before Feb. 7, 2014, and certainly before late February.” After that, he says, Treasury will run out of ways to shuffle money. Congress suspended the debt ceiling in October at $16.7 trillion, but it will stand at $17.3 trillion on Feb. 8, when it’s reinstated. The GOP wants more spending reform in exchange, but White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer says, “The American people should not have to pay the Republicans in Congress’ ransom for doing their most basic function, which is paying the bills.” For those keeping score, every man, woman and child in the U.S. now carries more than $53,000 of the federal debt. Enough never seems to be enough.