The Most Jaw-Dropping Line About Default Yet

by evanmcmurry

So this is terrifying:

“We always have enough money to pay our debt service,” said Mr. Burr, who pointed to a stream of tax revenue flowing into the Treasury as he shrugged off fears of a cascading financial crisis. “You’ve had the federal government out of work for close to two weeks; that’s about $24 billion a month. Every month, you have enough saved in salaries alone that you’re covering three-fifths, four-fifths of the total debt service, about $35 billion a month. That’s manageable for some time.” (via)

Unless I’m misreading that, Senator Burr is suggesting that we avoid default by keeping the government closed, thereby freeing up money to plug our debt by using funds that would otherwise pay the salaries of 800,000 government employees. The phrases “every month” and “some time” suggest he does not consider this a short term solution.

Bill Kristol made the extraordinarily cynical point the other day that the GOP might as well ride out the shutdown, as the party had already absorbed the negative effects and couldn’t get any more unpopular. I guess that sounded like a wager to Burr.

For more Burr, click here.