Ben Carson is in second place in the Republican presidential primary, and the big question is which is more frightening: his ignorance, or the ideas he does have. Ideas he has include not allowing a Muslim to be president and cutting the entire federal budget by three to four percent across the board. Scary. But then you get to things he seems simply not to know, as when interviewer Kai Ryssdal asked him "Should the Congress then and the president not raise the debt limit? Should we default on our debt?" And Carson's answer sure sounded like
he doesn't know that the debt limit and the budget are two different things:
Carson: Let me put it this way: if I were the president, I would not sign an increased budget. Absolutely would not do it. They would have to find a place to cut.
Ryssdal: To be clear, it's increasing the debt limit, not the budget, but I want to make sure I understand you. You'd let the United States default rather than raise the debt limit.
Carson: No, I would provide the kind of leadership that says, "Get on the stick guys, and stop messing around, and cut where you need to cut, because we're not raising any spending limits, period."
Ryssdal: I'm gonna try one more time, sir. This is debt that's already obligated. Would you not favor increasing the debt limit to pay the debts already incurred?
Carson: What I'm saying is what we have to do is restructure the way that we create debt. I mean if we continue along this, where does it stop? It never stops. You're always gonna ask the same question every year. And we're just gonna keep going down that pathway. That's one of the things I think that the people are tired of.
They're talking here about the debt limit increase that needs to happen because the United States runs out of borrowing authority
next month, and Carson's answer is to cut. If he seemed to understand that the debt limit is the authority to borrow money that Congress has already allocated in an existing law, the obvious question would be what exactly he thinks can be cut in less than a month that would make enough of a difference to avoid hitting the debt limit. But it really seems like he doesn't get that there are two concepts operating here. Or maybe he just thinks that he, Ben Carson, is the kind of miracle worker who would make things happen that no one else had considered possible. There is no possibility here that is not a frightening statement about a man who a significant number of Republican voters want to see in the White House.
(Via)