More Debt Kamikazes (The Tea Party Yet Again)
Via the Daily Beast (Tea Party takes on Boehner) comes an interview with Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots:
Is there any scenario where you think it would be OK to raise the debt ceiling?
No.
[…]
We’re hearing that if the debt limit is not raised by August 2nd that the country will go into default or stop paying its bills. Are you worried about that?
First of all, that’s a lie. They’re talking about default on the sovereign obligations of the United States. The only way that we will default on our debt and default on the service of our debt is if the president and Secretary Geithner choose to default. It’s irresponsible for anyone to talk about defaulting on our obligations because we’re not going to unless we choose to. Republicans have offered the Full Faith and Credit Act that would require that we pay those obligations first, but unfortunately the Republican leadership hasn’t even let that come to the floor.
[…]
If you wake up on August 3rd and the debt ceiling has not been raised, how will you feel?
August 3rd to me will be the same as August 2nd.
In response to all of this, Angus* at Kids Prefer Cheese writes:
So, Mr. Meckler is advocating a 1.6 trillion dollar cut in spending THIS YEAR out of a 3.8 trillion dollar budget? In other words around a 40% reduction in Federal spending this year?
That’s really his solution to the issue?
Nowhere in the interview does Meckler say what he would cut to hit this kind of target. Those pesky details are left as an exercise for the reader I guess.
What a freakin’ moron.
People, I am a big fan of small government and low taxes. I would welcome Federal spending being capped at say, no more than 20% of GDP (perhaps as an average over each presidential term). But you can’t get from where we are to where I’d like us to be in one year. No way, no how.
This Meckler guy is a clown.
Indeed.
—
*The web moniker of a libertarian economics professor at OU.
This Meckler guy is a clown.
I have yet to see anyone even vaguely connected to the Tea Party that wasn’t.
No doubt that the Tea Party faction is composed of clowns and idiots who talk a good game but are unwilling to specify where they would cut spending. Unfortunately, the idiots are holding the rest of their party, as well as the country, hostage with their obstinacy. They didn’t come to Congress to govern; they came to blow the place apart.