Earlier this month, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) joined the growing chorus of Republicans who have been claiming that not raising the debt ceiling for a few days once it is hit around August 2 won’t be a big deal. “If a bondholder misses a payment for a day or two or three or four — what is more important is you are putting the government in a materially better position to better pay its bills going forward,” Ryan said.

However, during a question and answer session hosted by the Spolight on Poverty and Opportunity, Ryan admitted that even a short-term failure to raise the debt ceiling — which would force the Treasury Department to start choosing which creditors to pay off and which ones to stiff — would mean “literally cutting off assistance to people” who rely on “vital programs“:

So ultimately, if the debt ceiling is not increased you ultimately would have a default. Now perhaps not immediately, but some would argue that the Treasury can prioritize its payments. I believe they can, but I don’t think we want to go down that path.

I don’t think we want to tempt default. That’s not our strategy. And so if we did have a default or if we did not raise the limit, then Treasury’s prioritizing payments and literally cutting off assistance to people because they don’t have the checks they can write to vital programs.

Listen here:

Ryan has been all over the place when it comes to the debt ceiling. Back in January, he said “you can’t not raise the debt ceiling. Default is the unworkable solution.” However, a few weeks ago he said that raising the debt ceiling “won’t happen, I’m serious about this, it won’t happen if we don’t cut spending.” Then he said that short-term default is okay with him.

But Ryan is correct that even a short-term failure to raise the debt ceiling could have disastrous consequences. For instance, the Bipartisan Policy Center found that one of the most immediate cuts, were the debt ceiling not raised in time, would have to be to Social Security. As the BPC put it, if the debt limit isn’t increased and Treasury is forced to only work with the revenue coming in on a daily basis, “handling all payments for important and popular programs (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, active duty pay) will quickly become impossible.”

And forcing the government to stiff somebody, regardless of who it is, is going to call into question the nation’s creditworthiness. It seems that Ryan agrees, even if he is disinclined to do anything about it.

Back in 2002, a spokesman for former Gov. Mitt Romney (R), a current GOP presidential hopeful, derided an anti-tax pledge as “government by gimmickry.” But Romney is evidently okay with gimmickry now, as he signed the Americans for Tax Reform anti-tax pledge last week.

Not through with putting his John Hancock on cockamamie pledges, Romney today signed the right-wing “Cut, Cap, and Balance” pledge that is being pushed by a host of conservative organizations and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). Among other things, the pledge demands that the nation’s debt ceiling not be raised without congressional approval of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution:

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) said Wednesday that he supports a pledge put forth by some congressional Republicans and conservative groups calling for significant spending cuts and caps as well as a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution in exchange for a vote this summer to raise the country’s debt ceiling.

“I am for cut, cap and balance,” Romney told reporters after a Capitol Hill meeting with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), according to the Salt Lake Tribune’s Tommy Burr.

In addition to calling for the U.S. to default on its debt unless Congress approves a balance budget amendment (which is totally unrealistic as well as economically bone-headed), the pledge also calls for caps on federal spending. Romney has voiced support for such caps before before, and as I noted here, they would be terribly destructive and force deep cuts to important government programs, without even resulting in a balanced budget.

As Judd Legum noted today, even the radical House Republican budget authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) wouldn’t pass muster under the balanced budget amendment. That Romney is willing to risk the economic meltdown that could occur if the U.S. defaults on its debt in order to pander to DeMint and his conservative allies is quite distressing.

For months, Senate Republicans have been carping that the administration was not moving fast enough in submitting free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama for congressional consideration. And one of the loudest voices in favor of moving the agreements has been Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “We need to change course. And a good place to start is with trade,” McConnell said just a few weeks ago.

The administration had been refusing to move the pacts forward without Congress reauthorizing the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which aids workers who lose their jobs due to international trade. Republicans allowed an expansion of TAA to expire back in February (even as they were advocating for their constituents to receive TAA payments).

Congressional leaders yesterday struck a deal with the White House that will reauthorize TAA in return for moving on the pending agreements. But McConnell is so adamantly opposed to helping workers who are harmed by trade that he vowed to vote against a free trade deal that includes a reauthorization of trade assistance:

“I’ve never voted against a trade agreement before — but if the administration were to embed TAA into the Korean trade agreement, I would be compelled to vote against it,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters.

McConnell’s distaste for trade assistance is well known. Earlier this month he called on the administration to move on free trade pacts and “leave Trade Adjustment Assistance out of it.” But now he will vote against the very deal he has championed if it includes provisions to help the workers who are inevitably hurt.

And McConnell is not the only Republican who wants trade deals to be approved without also approving measures to help workers who are displaced. For instance, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) called it “regrettable” that trade assistance is a part of the package.

Merits of the trade deals aside (and they have their issues), forging ahead without providing help to the workers who wind up on the short end of the stick is simply unacceptable. But for McConnell, including aid for displaced workers is reason to vote down what is otherwise a top GOP priority.

Like many of his Republican colleagues, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has aggressively cut social services for the most vulnerable in his state while prioritizing a reduced tax burden for the most fortunate. Christie vetoed a bill last May that would have raised taxes on any income over $1 million to 10.75 percent, increasing revenue that was needed to plug the country’s second largest budget gap.

The measure would have affected just 16,000 of the state’s nearly 9 million residents, while Christie’s cuts to education, public safety, and health services have affected millions. Now, state Democrats are re-introducing the surtax, even though it has little hope of passing, as Christie has already said he would veto it:

The way state Sen. Ray Lesniak and several other Democrats see it, public employees are about to dig deeper into their pockets to bail out New Jersey’s fragile economy, and they want millionaires do the same.

But with Gov. Chris Christie vowing to veto any tax increase. … The Democrats said the additional revenue could be used for a variety of purposes, like increasing school financing for rural and suburban school districts, property tax rebates for the elderly and increased aid to police departments that had to lay off officers.

Chrisite claims he has a mandate from voters to impose this Tea Party agenda on the generally blue state of New Jersey, fighting high-profile wars with teachers, reporters, and even his own constituents who opposed him.

But a new Bloomberg Poll suggests Christie has greatly overplayed his hand. More than half of New Jersey residents now say they wouldn’t support a second term for the governor, and majorities disagreed with Christie on nearly every major issue he has pushed. On the millionaire surtax, a strong majority — 58 percent — of New Jersey residents said they disagreed with his veto.

Meanwhile, 65 percent opposed his education spending cuts. Overall, 68 percent said they think Christie stands with the business community over “ordinary New Jerseyans.”

Christie has claimed the surtax would force “job creators” to flee the state, even though a study from Princeton found this not to be true. “Christie wants us to believe that lower taxes on the very wealthy create jobs,” the Newark Star-Ledger wrote Sunday in an editorial calling for restoring many of Christie’s cuts. “There is no evidence to support that, but the dogma lives.”

Over the next few weeks, you’ll hear a lot from Republicans about the desperate need for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. The Hill reports:

Republican Senators are set to kick off a media blitz to push a balanced budget amendment, beginning Wednesday in D.C. and building up through their July Fourth recess next week, when Members will flood local papers and airwaves with support. [...]

More than a dozen lawmakers will hold a news conference Wednesday morning to reintroduce the bill they touted in March, followed by colloquies on the floor Wednesday and Thursday and multiple television appearances throughout the week. … The aides orchestrating the hometown push for the balanced budget amendment said most lawmakers are slotted to write local opinion pieces, discuss the amendment in local TV appearances, and address the topic in town halls and constituent meetings over the holiday break.

But here is something you likely won’t hear during the GOP “media blitz”: The amendment would make the budget authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), which nearly every House and Senate Republican just voted for, illegal.

Why? For decades, the Ryan Budget would exceed the spending cap of 18 percent of GDP specified by the Balanced Budget Amendment. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains:

Even the House-passed budget plan of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would not pass muster under the [Balanced Budget Amendment]…Federal spending under the Ryan plan would be close to 20 percent of GDP in 2018 through 2021. And the Congressional Budget Office estimates spending under the Ryan plan would be between 20 and 21 percent of GDP in the decade after that (for example, it would be 20¾ percent of GDP in 2030.)

Here is the chart straight from the CBO report:

In other words, the Republicans are now insisting on a bill that would require budgets far more radical than the Ryan budget that turns Medicare into a voucher program. It suggests that congressional Republicans are far more interested in grandstanding than actually reaching a deal to raise the debt ceiling and avert economic catastrophe.

Several Republicans have poo-pooed the need to raise the debt ceiling when the nation hits its legal borrowing limit sometime around Aug. 2. “I doubt that it would be disruptive to the economy,” said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA). Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said yesterday that Americans will say “well, good” if the U.S. defaults on some obligations.

Depending on how long the stalemate lasts, hitting the nation’s debt ceiling could do real damage to the nation’s economic growth, harm the fragile housing market, and even reignite the financial crisis. And as a new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center found, seniors may be among the first harmed if the debt ceiling isn’t raised because the country almost immediately wouldn’t be able to pay all Social Security benefits:

The Bipartisan Policy Center studied Treasury Department receipts and expenditures for August 2009 and 2010 and determined that the government likely would not have enough revenue to pay the full $23 billion payment to Social Security recipients due on Aug. 3.

On that day, according to the analysis, the government would take in about $12 billion in taxes and other revenue but would owe $32 billion, creating a $20 billion shortfall. It happens to be the first Wednesday of the month — the day a majority of Social Security recipients get their checks.

That Social Security would take such a heavy hit right away is a quirk of the calendar (in that payments are due literally the day after Treasury estimates that the ceiling will be hit), but the point is that an immediate 44 percent cut in government spending, which is what would be necessary if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, is going to adversely affect large and important government programs. As the BPC wrote, if the debt limit isn’t increased, “handling all payments for important and popular programs (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, active duty pay) will quickly become impossible.”

At the moment, the GOP has blown up negotiations over raising the debt ceiling in order to protect the rich and oil companies from tax increases, and to preserve corporate tax accounting gimmicks. And it seems that seniors will be the first ones to face the consequences of that decision.

Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) raised hell last year to stop the federal government from investigating Goldman Sachs regarding allegations that the company defrauded investors. In April 2010, shortly after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a civil suit against Goldman Sachs, Issa sent a letter to SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro demanding to know if there was “any sort of prearrangement, coordination, direction from, or advance notice” between the SEC and the Obama administration or congressional Democrats over the timing of the lawsuit.

Issa’s investigation of the SEC’s investigation into Goldman Sachs stole the headlines and reinforced Goldman Sach’s claim that they had done nothing wrong. Explaining his defense of Goldman Sachs, Issa said he was representing the views of ordinary Americans who are worried about the “growth of government and the growth of government wanting to become more complex, with more agencies and more control over our lives.”

However, recent personal finance disclosures reviewed by ThinkProgress paint a different picture of Issa’s motivations. According to documents filed recently with the House Clerk, Issa went on a buying spree of high yield Goldman Sachs bonds at the same time he was running defense for the investment bank in Congress. From February to December of 2010, Issa bought 12 Goldman Sachs High Yield Fund Class A bonds, each worth up to $50,000 (view page 10 the disclosure here). Many of the bonds were purchased in the months after he filed his letter to the SEC. The $600,000 in new Goldman Sachs investments added to Issa’s multimillion dollar accounts managed by the company, valued from $5.1 to $15.5 million.

Issa has faced accusations that he has used his considerable political power to enrich himself. Earlier this year, ThinkProgress revealed that Issa had requested nearly $1 million in earmark projects that would have benefitted real estate owned by Issa and his family.

Around the time Issa launched his defense of Goldman Sachs and Republicans at-large ramped up efforts to stop President Obama’s financial reforms, Goldman Sachs and other major investment banks shifted their campaign donations mostly to Republican candidates.

Issa’s inquiry in defense of Goldman Sachs turned out to be completely bunk. In October, an Inspector General investigation found no wrongdoing by the SEC regarding Issa’s allegations. But for all the media attention Issa created with his request for an investigation into the SEC, he faced little to no blowback for being dead wrong. Meanwhile, a report this year authored by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Carl Levin (D-MI) concluded that Goldman Sachs “misled clients and Congress about the firm’s bets on securities tied to the housing market.”