More Debt Kamikazes: Paul Ryan
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, July 15, 2011
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1 comment
Via Marketplace last month: Some Republicans OK with short-lived debt default
Quoting Ryan from CNBC:
PAUL RYAN: If a bondholder misses a payment for a day or two or three or four — what is more important is you are putting the government in a materially better position to better pay its bills going forward.
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Missing a payment for a day or two or three or four implies that the debt ceiling would be raised in a couple of days after the deadline. So is Ryan saying there’s no problem so long as the debt ceiling is raised soon? Does that make any sense?
In any event, if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, it won’t be the bondholders who won’t get paid, since the Constitution appears to require that the government’s debt be paid. It will be those of us who use government services and who receive payments from the government, or who are employed by companies that have government contracts or service those companies that have government contracts who will be affected.
How is it that Ryan, supposedly the Republican Party’s big brain, doesn’t understand this?