TPM Reader AS:
Why is there anything dumbfounding about the actions of the GOP? It’s the perfect way for them to achieve their policy goals, plus it has a political bonus.
What are their policy goals? They want to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They want to eliminate all discretionary spending: no more EPA, no more Department of Education, no more NIH, etc etc.
They’ve never been able to realize these goals through legislation because when it comes down to it these programs are all very popular. But they might be able to realize them as a matter of fact just by allowing the country to go into default.
Default would immediately and dramatically raise the borrowing costs of the US government. Even when we come out of default, these increased borrowing costs could make it impossible to continue funding the US government as we have known it. The interest rates would just make it too expensive.
The political bonus is that they’ll be able to blame the whole thing on Obama because he’s joined them in conflating the debt limit increase (aka “paying our past bills”) with future spending.
Make no mistake, defaulting on the debt is Grover Norquist’s dream come true, and that’s all that the GOP is about these days.
