As he warned Americans about the dangers associated with the mid-October debt limit deadline, President Barack Obama recalled Tuesday what transpired in 2011 when America “flirted” with default.
“Now the last time that the tea party Republicans flirted with the idea of default two years ago, markets plunged. Business and consumer confidence plunged. America’s credit rating was downgraded for the first time,” Obama said during an afternoon news conference. “And a decision to acutally go through with it, to actually permit default, according to many CEOs and economists, would be and I’m quoting here, ‘insane,’ ‘catastrophic,’ ‘chaos.’ These are some of the more polite words.”
The president also alluded to Warren Buffet, who said that the risk of default should be akin to nuclear bombs in that it’s “too horrible to use.”
