Republican Sen. Pat Toomey slammed the White House and President Obama for saying the country will default on its debt if it is not funded by Oct. 17th.
“There’s zero chance that the U.S. is going to default on its debt,” Toomey said, adding that tax revenues more than cover the interest payments on debt and the country would prioritize its payments. “There’s no way that any Treasury Secretary or administration would willfully choose to have the catastrophic results if we actually defaulted on our debt when it’s not necessary.”
Toomey said he’s brought up legislation to mandate that the government pays interest on its debt and avoids default, but, he says, the White House has threatened to veto it.
“They want to be able to hold the specter of a catastrophe in front of Republicans to cow us and intimidate us into giving the president what he wants, which is a whole lot of additional borrowing authority with no reforms whatsoever,” he said.
But earlier on the show, CNBC’s Mad Money host Jim Cramer dismissed this argument, mocking Tea Party senators who say they can pay the country’s bills piecemeal. “‘Let’s do Social Security and let’s do the debt, but the rest of the stuff we can hold off,’” Cramer quipped. “We can hold off? What are we going to hold off on Medicare? What are we going to hold off on? $60 billion goes out, $30 billion comes in. That’s the ratio. So what do we do? Maybe we pay Defense, maybe we don’t pay Defense. Maybe we pay Army, not Navy.”
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