For some reason, despite his rock-ribbed conservatism, Tom Coburn has a reputation among the MSM as a "sane" conservative. Maybe it's his courtly manner, I don't know. The man is an OB-GYN who wants to take away womens' control over their own bodies, so I've never seen him as sane. But whatever.
Coburn came out recently as a Default Denier, claiming that the consequences of a default would not be as terrible as President Obama has indicated:
"There's 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. And I would dispel the rumor that's going around that you hear on every newscast that if we don't raise the debt ceiling, we'll default on our debt -- we won't. We'll continue to pay our interest, we'll continue to redeem bonds, and we'll issue new bonds to replace those."
This morning, Coburn has admitted that default might be a catastrophe, but that it will be manageable.
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Not only that, he basically admits that he wants to precipitate a default as a means of extractng concessions on a long-term budget:
"I'd rather have a managed catastrophe now which I don't think will be there," Coburn told CNN's 'New Day' with Chris Cuomo. "I'm not saying we shouldn't pay our bills. What I’m saying is we should put ourselves in a position where we have to start making hard choices now."
So, this sitting United States Senator thinks we can
manage a default. He thinks a default is
desirable because he will be able to extract concessions not on Obamacare, not on a short-term CR, but on
long-term budget cuts. After Cuomo presses him, he reiterates that he thinks long-term cuts should be made before the debt ceiling is raised.
This is scary stuff. And Coburn has the nerve to say that his position isn't political, that he is the "most apolitical person in the Senate."