Seems the GOP's new line is that not raising the debt limit would be 'no big deal' and that Democrats are trying to use the possibility as a scare tactic. Which makes no sense of course because if their hostage is worthless, why bother taking it. But logic has no place when it comes to the GOP.
Fox News host Chris Wallace yesterday despicably accused the Obama Admininstration of trying to panic the markets. Which would make Republicans look bad.
Fox News host Chris Wallace suggested to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Sunday that President Barack Obama was purposely trying to "panic the markets" to damage the Republican Party.
"This week both you and the president seemed to be trying to panic the markets about both raising the debt ceiling and the government shutdown, saying that they should be more concerned," Wallace told Lew. "Aren't your efforts failing to try to use the markets to put pressure on Republicans to cave?"
And today Sen. Tom Coburn is trying to dismiss the 'rumor' that a default would create havoc:
Sen. Tom Coburn said Monday that warnings of a U.S. default if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling by Oct. 17 are untrue.
“I would dispel the rumor that is going around that you hear on every newscast that if we don’t raise the debt ceiling we will default on our debt. We won’t,” Coburn said on “CBS This Morning.”
The Oklahoma Republican said even if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, the dire predictions won’t come true.
“We’ll continue to pay our interest, we’ll continue to redeem bonds, and we’ll issue new bonds to replace those. So it’s not entirely accurate,” Coburn said, saying that attention needs to focus on long-term solvency of government programs. “What we need to do is have a discussion.”
Coburn said negotiations over the budget and debt ceiling go hand in hand, because the debt ceiling is a myth.
“The debt ceiling and the CR are the same thing. There is no such thing as a debt ceiling in this country because it’s never been not increased, and that’s why we’re $17 trillion in debt,” Coburn
I don't know who he thinks started this 'rumor' or where he gets his financial information, but generally Bloomberg News is the standard by which the GOP functions and from where come the marchng orders. They seem to think it would be a pretty BFD. They are predicting a total post-apocalyptic dystopia:
A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever seen.
Failure by the world’s largest borrower to pay its debt -- unprecedented in modern history -- will devastate stock markets from Brazil to Zurich, halt a $5 trillion lending mechanism for investors who rely on Treasuries, blow up borrowing costs for billions of people and companies, ravage the dollar and throw the U.S. and world economies into a recession that probably would become a depression. Among the dozens of money managers, economists, bankers, traders and former government officials interviewed for this story, few view a U.S. default as anything but a financial apocalypse.
The $12 trillion of outstanding government debt is 23 times the $517 billion Lehman owed when it filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008. As politicians butt heads over raising the debt ceiling, executives from Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Lloyd C. Blankfein have warned that going over the edge would be catastrophic.
“If it were to occur -- and it’s a big if -- one would expect a series of legal triggers, potentially transmitting the default to many other markets,” said Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., the world’s largest fixed-income manager. “All this would add to the headwinds facing economic growth. It would also undermine the role of the U.S. in the world economy.”
This must be part of their face-saving strategy now that it's clear their hostage taking has failed. Oh, I guess it wasn't such a nice economy anyway, never mind. The GOP is in total disarray if they have stopped listening to the Masters of the Universe. And while they dick around, millions of lives are at stake.
To sum up:
I don't know any serious person who doesn't think this will be cataclysmic," said Steve Bell, a former Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee and now senior director with the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Which by definition, excludes the GOP lawmakers.