House GOPers’ self-imposed intellectual insulation leaves them surrounded by hacks who say there is no default risk http://t.co/6uJFo6DQ5E

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) October 7, 2013

Republicans talk about this with the confidence of people who can’t lose. “We’ve got more than enough cash flow, more than enough cash flow to pay interest on the public debt when it comes due and the House Republicans have passed a prioritization bill,” said Texas Rep. Joe Barton on CNBC this week. “This talk about default by the U.S. Treasury is nonsense. The president can be smart or the president can be stupid. And I would assume as smart as President Obama is, when push comes to shove, he’ll be smart. So we are not going to default on the public debt. But that doesn’t mean that we have to pay every bill the day it comes in.”

Joe Barton, who thinks harnessing wind power will cause the wind to slow down and the temperature to go up.
content.time.com