"We came here to do something. We don’t care about re-election."

“Re-election is the farthest thing from my mind,” said Representative Tom Reed, a freshman Republican from upstate New York. “Like many of my colleagues in the freshman class, I came down here to get our fiscal house in order and take care of the threat to national security that we see in the federal debt. We came here not to have long careers. We came here to do something. We don’t care about re-election.”…

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said many freshman Republicans — “to their undying credit” — were not concerned with re-election. “The people who got elected in 2010 are going to go down fighting,” said Mr. Graham, who served eight years in the House before winning a Senate seat in 2002. “They are not going to be persuaded by traditional politics. They could care less about 2012. They want to do what they can on their watch.”…

Some Republicans say they do not worry much about being punished by their constituents for playing hardball with their votes on the debt limit and thus pushing the nation to the brink of default. And besides, they doubt that the consequences of a default would be as dire as Mr. Obama and many economists say.

Representative Jeff Landry, a freshman Republican from Louisiana, said, “I don’t believe, if we fail to raise the debt ceiling, that we will default.” Even if the debt ceiling is reached, Mr. Landry said, the government has more than enough revenue coming in each month to pay principal and interest on the debt.