GOP Presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty has been all over the place when it comes to his position on raising the nation’s debt ceiling. He has said that failing to raise the debt ceiling would be good for the economy, endorsed Republican attempts to raise it only as long as cockamamie budget plans are attached, but then refused to rule out raising it were he to become President.

However, Pawlenty’s debt ceiling fickleness reached new heights today during an interview with CNBC. Literally twenty seconds after telling CNBC’s Steve Leisman that “I wish they wouldn’t raise” the debt ceiling, Pawlenty said that the debt ceiling does, in fact, have to be raised:

LEISMAN: So you favor default by the United States? Is that what you’re saying? Under any circumstances you would not raise the debt ceiling without sufficient spending cuts?

PAWLENTY: They’ve already gone through the debt ceiling, they went through it in May, so I’m saying I wish they wouldn’t raise it, but if they’re going to raise it, at least get some structural reform and improvement so we’re on a better trajectory going forward.

LEISMAN: But Governor, hold on the other side here. Are you saying you are willing to accept default and/or breaching the debt ceiling in the absence of sufficient spending cuts?

PAWLENTY: No, I think they’re going to have to raise the debt ceiling, but what I’m saying is if they do that, as they do that, they should get some structural reform.

Watch it:

Pawlenty has, of course, changed positions on several key issues, including cap and trade, but this interview must surely set a record for Pawlenty’s quickest change of heart regarding policy. It’s worth mentioning that the tax cut plan Pawlenty has proposed would be three times more expensive than the Bush tax cuts and “by 2021, under Pawlenty’s plan, total publicly held debt would exceed 100 percent of GDP — over $24 trillion,” obviously necessitating a substantial increase in the debt ceiling.

ThinkProgress filed this report from a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

A member of the local Rotary Club stood yesterday to ask former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) a question weighing on the minds of millions of jobless Americans: At a time when corporations are sitting on record amounts of cash, why are the Americans who can least afford it being asked to shoulder the burden of trillions of dollars in potential budget cuts?

But Romney dodged the question, ignoring the plight of the poor and unemployed, and instead launched into a speech about how American jobs were being outsourced to developing countries with cheap labor and miniscule tax rates because the U.S. has made itself unattractive to major corporations. Instead of sticking up for Americans who are facing cuts to the safety net programs they desperately need, Romney took the opportunity to proclaim that America’s problems could be fixed if it gave corporations yet another tax cut:

QUESTIONER: We obviously need cuts to the budget…but many of the recipients of those programs are Americans whose jobs have gone places where labor is cheap. So corporate profits remain high and in some cases higher than ever. Is it fair to ask those Americans to shoulder reductions in favor of businesses and corporations who have sent those jobs overseas?

ROMNEY: [...] We need to make ourselves the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs and pioneers and businesses, just like it was when the Founders created this country. How do you do that? One, you make sure our employer tax rates aren’t the highest in the world. Right now they’re tied with Japan as the highest in the world. They’re about 10 points higher than the corporate tax rates in many of the countries in Europe.

Watch it:

Not only did Romney seemingly ignore the concerns raised by the question, his answer perpetuated the false idea that American corporations are subject to the highest tax rate in the world. In reality, those corporations pay an effective rate that is among the lowest in the industrialized world. Some of the nation’s largest businesses, in fact, had effective tax rates that were actually negative.

Meanwhile, the GOP continues to support cutting funding from programs that help the jobless and the poor. But for Romney, that’s easily justifiable: corporations, already earning record profits, need a tax break to go along.

Rep. Eric "Rick" Crawford (R-AR)

Several Republicans have cast doubt upon the economic effects of failing to raise the nation’s debt ceiling by Aug. 2 (when Treasury has said the U.S. will have completely exhausted its ability to borrow). The prevailing theory is that the Treasury Department would have ample revenue to cover the most important expenditures, while everything else could go by the wayside.

As the Bipartisan Policy Center has pointed out, this simply isn’t true: the U.S. would likely not have enough revenue to cover all the Social Security checks that are due on Aug. 3 if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. Failing to raise the debt ceiling would force a 44 percent cut in government spending overnight, leaving vital programs like food inspection, student loans, and border security to fall by the wayside (unless Treasury decides to not pay for huge programs like Medicare).

Some Republicans, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), have said a few days of forcing Treasury to prioritize payments wouldn’t be a bad thing. But one congressman, Rep. Eric “Rick” Crawford (R-AR), thinks that process should go on for quite a bit longer:

“That wouldn’t work for just a few days. That would work for a few years,” said Crawford, who added that he would agree to raising the debt limit only if such a bill included major changes in federal budget priorities. Budget deficits, he said, require “that we take some painful measures now. I’d rather swallow that bitter pill today.”

Credit rating agencies have warned the U.S. that failing to pay some obligations, even if every debt interest payment is made, would still result in a downgrading of U.S. credit. But Crawford isn’t alone in saying the U.S. should actively drive itself over the debt ceiling cliff. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) called for the U.S. to default because “it could benefit us to go through a period of crisis.”

Mitch Daniels may be proud of its surplus, but it came from deep sacrifices from state workers.

As many states continue to grapple with budget crises that arose as a result of the recession, Indiana appears to stand out from the crowd. The state announced yesterday that it “closed out the budget year that ended June 30 with a surplus of about $1.2 billion.”

While this may seem like a laudable achievement, when you look at how the state reached this number, the surplus is much less impressive. Yesterday, state Auditor Tim Berry admitted that a major reason Indiana has such a large surplus is because it was “built on the backs of state employees,” who had to take on longer workloads and reduced compensation. Referring to these employees, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) praised them for their “terrific job of cost control“:

State Auditor Tim Berry called the state workers who bore most of those budget cuts via greater workloads, “heroes.” “The surplus was built on the backs of state employees,” said Berry, after he thanked them for tightening their belts. [...] “More money in Hoosiers’ incomes and a terrific job of cost control by state employees working together combined to produce an even stronger result than we expected at budget time,” Daniels said in a statement Thursday. He planned a Friday morning press conference to discuss the budget.

Indeed, Indiana achieved its surplus only by taking the most regressive of measures, not by asking for any sacrifice by some of its wealthiest citizens. In addition to sacrifices made by the state’s public workers, the state’s Department of Child Services took a $104 million budget cut last year, and the state’s K-12 education system lost $491 million over the last two fiscal years.

While balancing the state’s budget is actually required by law in Indiana, having such a surplus is no great accomplishmnent if it was done in a way that harmed the state’s economy and hurt the wages, benefits, and conditions of hard-working middle class Indianans while leaving the wealthiest untouched.

Earlier this week, President Obama warned that he “cannot guarantee” that Social Security checks will go out on schedule on Aug. 3 if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2. As a report from the Bipartisan Policy Center laid out, “the government likely would not have enough revenue to pay the full $23 billion payment to Social Security recipients due on Aug. 3″ were the debt ceiling not raised, because of the high amount of Social Security payments that are due that day.

Two days ago, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) criticized Obama for employing this rhetoric. “We were all shocked and appalled that President Obama dangled out in front of the cameras that senior citizens may not get their checks. That is a very dangerous statement to make,” Bachmann said, calling on the President to “tell the truth.”

Republicans have put forth the theory that Social Security is not subject to debt ceiling limitations because it is financed by payroll taxes. But it seems like Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) agrees with Obama, and not his GOP colleagues, on this one. During an interview last night with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, Boehner agreed that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, Social Security is one of the programs that is on the chopping block:

VAN SUSTEREN: Congresswoman Bachmann talked to me last night about Social Security, because that wa one of the things the President said, said something about, come August 2nd, you know, maybe the checks won’t go out. Does the money from the Social Security come from a different account essentially, so that even if we do hit the debt ceiling and there is still some government shutdown, those checks still go out because the revenue from them is from people working?

BOEHNER: Ohhh, I don’t believe so. At the end of the day, it all comes out of the general fund, and the general fund is expected to be out of cash come August 3rd or August 4th, and then the Treasury Secretary would have to make decisions on what to pay and what not to pay.

Watch it:

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) this week called on Obama to “quit lying” about Social Security. “You know darn well that if Aug. 2, comes and goes there is plenty of money to pay off our debt and cover all Social Security obligations,” Walsh said. Maybe Boehner should drop him a line.