The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus talked to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) last week about a variety of fiscal issues, most notably sequestration. But when the discussion turned to the debt ceiling, which will need to be raised in May, Marcus said she assumed Republicans would want to avoid this crisis.
“Not this time,” the right-wing congressman said, before Marcus could even finish her sentence. “The debt problem is getting worse,” Ryan said. “We’re not leaving this session of Congress until we have a down payment on the problem.”
Of course, we already have a down payment on long-term debt issue, since President Obama has already approved $2.5 trillion in debt reduction, and that figure would be much higher if Republicans would agree to a simple compromise.
But the larger takeaway here is that congressional Republicans, at least rhetorically, claim to be prepared — again — to crash the economy and trash the full faith and credit of the United States unless their as-yet-unstated demands are met. Indeed, it’s not just Ryan — a House Republican aide, asked if the GOP would demand ransom in order to do their duty, said today, “Stay tuned.”
Greg Sargent explained the larger context.









