Is John Boehner willing to drive us over a cliff? Maybe

Or maybe not.  Today, regarding the 17 October deadline for raising the debt limit before we simply cannot pay our government's bills, he said:

'I don’t believe that we should default on our debt. It’s not good for our country.'

Okay, that's promising.

'_But …'_

Uh-oh.

' … after 55 years of spending more than what you bring in, something ought to be addressed.'

Um, John, you might want to check out http://www.davemanuel.com/history-of-deficits-and-surpluses-in-the-united-states.php .  As you can see, we haven't had 55 years of federal budget deficits. In fact, we were in the green as late as 2001.

'I think the American people expect if we’re going to raise the amount of money we can borrow, we ought to do something about our spending problem and the lack of economic growth in our country.'

I think the American people expect we will pay our bills for money we've already spent.  You know, like good, honest, responsible people.

If you would like to have a conversation about what to do about "our spending problem and the lack of economic growth in our county" (or even how lack of the former may be contributing to that low rate of the latter), that's great.  _But pay the bills first._

Bottom line, is Boehner going to take us over the edge?  Who knows?  Is his statement cagey and provocative, or simply wishy-washy and non-committal? I guess we'll find out.

Reshared post from +Les Jenkins

Grover Norquest once said "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

Looks like the Republicans plan on making that happen.