Would Obama like to repeat the meltdown of 2008?

According to political punditry, Obama and the Democrats want to pick a fight with House Republicans because they think it will redound to their advantage in the 2014 elections. What they don't explain is how the Democrats are advantaged by forcing Senators Begich, Hagan, Landrieu, Pryor, and Shaheen to vote such an indefensible position as a congressional exemption from Obamacare. Landrieu's case is exceptionally noteworthy. She has voted for the special exemption from Obamacare for the congress and herself while on the first day the healthcare exchanges were open not a single policy was sold in her native state of Louisiana. She is the only Democrat holding statewide office in her state. One would have to go back to the waning days of Reconstruction to see the Republican Party as strong in that state as it is today. Pryor's senate career is probably as moribund as Landrieu's and the remaining three senators are extremely vulnerable.
I don't think Obama cares about future elections. The above five are expendable if he can succeed in wresting control of the purse from the GOP controlled congress. Had not the Tea Party sprung to life in 2009 he would have succeeded in "fundamentally transforming America" but now that ambition can only be fulfilled if he can successfully make the debt limit a moot point. I don't think I am alone in that suspicion. John Harwood of CNBC appeared Larry Kudlow's show after his interview with Obama in which the President had warned the markets of the seriousness of the debt limit and the urgent need for a swift resolution thereof. Kudlow flatly asked Harwood if he thought Obama had any extra-constitutional ideas to bring about a speedy resolution. Of course Harwood, being the a good Obama tuchas-lecher, said no.
In addition to raising the alarm in financial markets, today Obama dusted off a threat from the last debt ceiling confrontation namely to withhold Social Security checks while reiterating his promise not to compromise.

Supposedly the fictional 14th amendment option has been take off the table. Aside from inviting an impeachment it would create as many problems as a default. A downgrade would be issued by every rating agency and congress could make the bonds nearly impossible to sell by a simple resolution not to honor them. Regardless of who would eventually win in court, investors would be reluctant to buy any debt that they may have to go to court to collect.
Obama owes his election to the financial calamity of 2008. During that calamity congress folded and granted George Bush power it should have never ceded. Would a meltdown even if deliberately brought about cause a frantic public to demand extraordinary action? Would Obama be happy to deliver extraordinary action?You bet.
Congress has it within its power to take the nuclear option out of his hands simply by not passing the present continuing resolution. According to the legal theorists who make the 14th amendment legal argument if congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling the president has two conflicting obligations. He must pay the debt and spend the money that congress appropriated to be spent but if there was no CR there would be no appropriated  spending. No conflict so no reason not to pay the debt. Congress could then raise the debt limit by $100 billion which would last until after Thanksgiving and instruct Obama to make the cuts required to balance the budget by then. It could pass a CR for each essential department while holding up funding for Education, Energy, Labor, and that portion of HHS that funds Obamacare.