Tim Pawlenty, former Minnesota governor and presumed 2012 hopeful, is trying really, shamelessly hard to distinguish himself as the most conservative candidate in the GOP primary field.
First, last week, he said (on the show of an anti-gay, anti-Muslim radio host) that he favors reinstating "don't ask, don't tell" in the military.
And now, on Fox News Sunday, Pawlenty said that Congress should not raise the federal debt ceiling. Watch:
As Salon's Andrew Leonard has explained, failure by Congress to raise the $14 trillion debt ceiling would mean that, sometime later this year, the Treasury would not be able to borrow money. That, in turn, would mean that the government would not be able to pay all of its bills -- Social Security benefits, say, or interest on government bonds. Economists say this would have disastrous consequences.
Pawlenty's idea is to instead cut spending "dramatically," as the Wall Street Journal describes it. But no word on what specifically Pawlenty would cut.
Shares