Several Congressional Republicans, including Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), have posited that failing to raise the debt ceiling — and thus forcing the U.S. to default on some of its obligations — would not be bad for the economy. “I don’t think it’s going to have an adverse impact on the economy for the days or weeks or perhaps even months that this would continue,” Toomey said.

These “default deniers” don’t believe that failing to raise the debt ceiling would have the negative consequences that most economic analysts say it will. Radio shock-jock Rush Limbaugh even said yesterday that failing to raise the debt ceiling will improve the nation’s creditworthiness.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), though, believes that default would cause a “crisis.” But, as he told Politico, he actively wants it to happen anyway:

Nunes says the debt cap must be raised at some point but not necessarily before the point of default.

“By defaulting on the debt, in the short and long term, it could benefit us to go through a period of crisis that forces politicians to make decisions” on major policies that affect the budget, he told POLITICO.

The GOP has been playing chicken with the debt ceiling for months, but Nunes is now advocating outright default and all of the consequences such a default would bring. As Princeton Professor Alan Blinder noted in the Wall Street Journal this morning, the U.S. defaulting on its obligations could eventually “reignite the world financial crisis”:

Should it occur, the consequences could be severe. It might, for example, reignite the world financial crisis. Remember how rattled financial markets became last year when it looked like Greece might default? And that was just little Greece and the possibility of default. An actual default by the mightiest nation on Earth would be immeasurably more unsettling. Where, in such a case, would frightened investors run to hide? The U.S. dollar would be among the first casualties. If hot money were to flee what was once its safest haven, the dollar would sink and U.S. interest rates would rise. The latter could lead us back into recession.

There would also be lasting costs to the U.S. government in the form of higher interest rates…How much? Again, no one can know. But even if it’s as little as 10-20 basis points on the U.S. government’s average borrowing cost, that’s an additional $10 billion to $20 billion in interest expenses every year. Seems like an expensive way to score a political point

Bank of America analysts agreed, noting that not raising the debt ceiling “would likely push the U.S. into recession and drag down the stock market.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said earlier this month that “no one is advocating defaulting.” But it seems, for the House Republicans at least, that is no longer the case.

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

Last weekend, WorldNetDaily (WND) held its annual “Taking Back America” conference in Miami, Florida. WND is the for-profit, right-wing center for the “birther” conspiracy questioning President Obama’s citizenship. WND publishes work by Jerome Corsi, who began the allegation in early 2008. WND publishes literally hundreds of articles and blog posts on birther conspiracy theories, places billboards around the country about Obama’s birth certificate, hosts radio programs for prominent birthers like G. Gordon Liddy, and sells various products related to birtherism, including DVDs, signs, stickers, books, and magazines.

The conference was no different. It featured several speakers accusing President Obama of being born in Kenya and Indonesia (and for being a “secret Muslim”). While most mainstream conservatives avoided the event, two lawmakers, Reps. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN), were slated to appear. Nunes — who recently published a book through WND which argues for the Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) plan to privatize Social Security — hailed the WND CEO Joseph Farah for having the “courage to print the truth.” Later, Nunes explained to ThinkProgress that he did not see anything particularly objectionable in the birther movement.

Bachmann, however, canceled at the very last minute. In taped remarks offered in lieu of her speech, Bachmann thanked the WND attendees for “everything you are doing to keep the flame of liberty burning brightly.” “You are all patriots,” she added. Bachmann explained that she could not make the conference because she was in her home state of Minnesota campaigning for her reelection against “Howard Dean and the DailyKos”:

NUNES: Well look I’m never going to be one in this country to try to tell someone what they should think and what they should believe. And I think their motto is a “Free Press and a Free People,” they have a right to do and whatever they believe they believe. And we all enjoy individual liberty, at least for now in this country. [...]

BACHMANN: I’m currently here in Minnesota working very hard for each and every vote. I wanted to express to each one of you there today my very deep and sincere appreciation for everything you are doing to keep the flame of liberty burning brightly.

Watch it:

Despite her claim to the birthers that she was in Minnesota working on her campaign on Friday September 17th, Bachmann was actually in Washington DC addressing another right-wing group. Around the same time WND played her taped remarks, Bachmann was actually busy addressing the Value Voters Summit at the Omni Shoreham hotel in the Woodley Park neighborhood of the nation’s capital.

Some of the most inflammatory rhetoric in recent days surrounding the health care debate has come from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who excused the racist, homophobic slurs at the recent Capitol Hill Tea Party by saying that they were a justifiable response to Democrats’ “totalitarian tactics.” He has also said Democratic congressmen from California are “part of this totalitarian regime in Washington” whose “votes are for sale.” McClatchy reports that he is now comparing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to infamous international dictators:

Nunes said Pelosi and her lieutenant, Rep. George Miller, D-Concord, want to cut off Valley irrigation water because “they are radical environmental crazies,” and he explicitly likened the House leaders’ water policies to those of the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the current Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe.

Saddam’s forces killed between 30,000 and 60,000 of the so-called Marsh Arabs in the early 1990s, following an uprising encouraged by the first Bush administration after the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War. Saddam’s campaign included destroying marshlands. Mugabe’s corrupt security forces practice torture and “politically motivated, arbitrary and unlawful killings,” according to the State Department’s annual human rights report. Some activists allege Mugabe’s repressive tactics include cutting off water supplies to dissident cities.

Nunes also took a shot at aides who work on Capitol Hill, calling them “‘staff thugs,’ who watch over lawmakers during votes.” Nunes’ comments are similar to those of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who urged bankers to lobby against financial reform and not be deterred by the “little punk staffers” who work in Congress.

This morning on C-Span’s Washington Journal, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) justified the disturbing racist and homophobic epitaphs that angry tea baggers hurled yesterday at Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), and other House Democrats. Nunes insisted that everyone has a right to “smear” whoever they want and that the tea baggers’ behavior was understandable given the “crazy totalitarian tactics” that he alleges Democrats are engaged in:

SCULLY: A lot of angry comments aimed at a couple of your colleagues, including Barney Frank and Congressman John Lewis, using the “n” word as some of the protesters jeered at him as he walked through the halls of the Capitol.

NUNES: Yeah, well I think that when you use totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy. I think, you know, there’s people that have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone, they can do it. It’s not appropriate. And I think I would stop short of characterizing the 20,000 people protesting, that all of them were doing that –

SCULLY: — those are just some of the stories.

NUNES: Of course. I think the left loves to play a couple of incidents here or there.

Later in the show, a caller said he “took exception” to what Nunes said because he “sort of justified” the racial slurs. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), who followed Nunes’ appearance on C-Span this morning, repudiated his remarks. Becerra acknowledged that “it’s a free country, we get to say what we wish,” but added, “I don’t think there’s any excuse that can be given and there never should be.” Watch it:

While Nunes justified the ugly rhetoric and actions of yesterday’s event, most other Republican lawmakers spent today distancing themselves from the outbursts.

“Nobody condones that at all. There were 30,000 people here in Washington yesterday. And, yes, there were some very awful things said,” stated Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) on ABC. On Meet the Press, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) insisted that these “few isolated incidents” shouldn’t obscure the fact that “millions of Americans fear the impact of the Democrats’ healthcare reform.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele dismissed the incidents as consisting of “a handful of people who just got stupid.” Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) took a somewhat harsher tone when he stated that he decried the behavior of the protesters “in the strongest terms.”