Bachmann argues avoiding default by raising debt limit caused downgrade

(Larry Downing/Reuters)
 

Michele Bachmann really is a marvelous combination of stupid and crazy:

"For the last two weeks, I led the fight against raising the debt limit," Bachmann said. Increasing the limit "pushed the rating agency over the edge." It was a "$2.4 trillion blank check that caused the downgrade."

Make no mistake: The downgrade was Barack Obama's fault. "We were somehow able to get through the Great Depression without a credit downgrade," she said. "Only under this president have we seen a credit downgrade... we are getting that credit rating back. That is going to be our goal. That will be our mission."

Actually, increasing the debt limit allowed us to avoid default, and avoiding default is rule #1 when it comes to protecting your credit rating. Your credit rating, is, after all, an assessment of your likelihood of defaulting. If Bachmann had her way, we'd have gone into default and our credit rating would have been destroyed.

It's Michele Bachmann's right to disagree with America's fiscal policy, but at the very least she should acknowledge that President Obama has ceded control of fiscal policy to Republicans on both the spending and the revenue side. So to the extent she thinks this is a mess, it's her own party's mess.

But whatever she thinks about fiscal policy, the fact that she believes defaulting would have strengthened our credit rating ranks right up there with some of the most astonishingly dumb ideas I've ever heard come out of a politician's mouth.