President Obama and his Democratic allies are needlessly spooking financial markets about the prospect of a default on the national debt, Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) said Sunday on Meet the Press.
Even if the debt ceiling is not raised before the predicted deadline of October 17, Paul said there is “no reason” for the country to default. Congress could pass a GOP-backed proposal — the Full Faith and Credit Act — to take the prospect of default off the table.
“This is a game,” he said. “This is kind of like closing the World War II Memorial. They all get out on TV and they say, ‘Oh, we’re going to default.’ They’re the ones scaring the marketplace. We shouldn’t scare the marketplace. We should never default.”
Paul recalled the debt-ceiling debate in 2011, after which the U.S. had its credit rating downgraded — because, Paul said, the country was not taking adequate steps to rein in its massive debt.”It isn’t so much these deadlines that the market’s worried about, the market’s also worried about a $17 trillion debt, and that we’re not acting fiscally responsibly,” he said.
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