The debt limit has been raised 74 times since 1962. A showdown isn't common, but it's happened before. This article gives some history of previous confrontations.
Digby at Hullabaloo remarks that the debt ceiling has been a political football even longer than that. Here she quotes an article from July 26, 1958:
• The Federal Debt CeilingAnd Ronald Reagan on the debt ceiling, 1983:
“A specter that has been putting in an appearance more or less regularly every year now since 1953 is again back to haunt the Administration. That is the problem of keeping the public debt within the debt ceiling – a problem that will be additionally complicated in the present fiscal year at least by the prospect of a very substantial budget deficit.
The debt ceiling is a comparatively new instrument of fiscal control in this country. In 1938, with the debt then standing at what many regarded as the dangerously high level of $37 billion, Congress acted to discourage future reckless spending by setting a limit on the debt of $45 billion. During the ensuing eight years, most of which were marked by war or preparation for war, Congress had little choice but to revise this limited ceiling upward when such action was requested by the President. The ceiling was lifted five times in that period, until it reached $300 billion in 1945. A year later it was revised downward for the first time to its present level of $275 billion.”
The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the costs, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns.
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