As the debt ceiling vote looms over the head of America -- along with our credit rating being held in the balance -- Rep. Paul Broun not only won't vote to raise the debt ceiling, he wants to lower it. I'm not lying to you. Andrea Mitchell was asking Rep. Broun if he would vote for John Boehner's plan and actually he stood there with a straight face and said he introduced a bill to lower the debt ceiling.
Broun: I introduced a bill to lower the debt ceiling, not raise it. And i just think raising the debt ceiling is not the way to go. We need to lower it. We need to pay off the debt. We need to deal with the debt and we need to create a stronger economy. We just disagree on the tactics here. We both want to get to the same end result. That's to create jobs out in the -- throughout America.
Mitchell: Congressman, when you talk about lowering the debt ceiling, the debt ceiling is being raised to pay for money that has been appropriated by this Congress and previous Congresses, but in particular by this Congress. You're paying for what has already been charged not for future expenses.
Broun: Well, Andrea, the thing is when someone is overextended and broke they don't continue paying for expensive automobiles. They sell the expensive automobiles and buy a cheaper one. They don't continue paying for country club dues. They drop out of the country club. We need to pay down the debt. We need to create a strong economy, create jobs, and raising the debt ceiling is just going to make it worse long-term in my opinion. That's the reason that I think we need to go back to the drawing board. We need to do everything we can to cut expenses across the board to the federal government, so that we can put this financial house back in order. we cannot continue this fiscal fiasco here in Washington.
Andrea tries to explain to him what the debt ceiling is, but he either lacks the intelligence or is too stuck in ideology to be open, or even able, to hear what she has to say.
What Broun's essentially telling her is that he hopes the US economy will crash and burn, and that we become relegated to the economic status of a Third-World nation.
This might be the craziest thing I've heard coming from Republicans throughout this whole debt ceiling fiasco. And he's generated a lot of off-the-wall quotes in Congress over the course of his career. Here's a sampling:
