As ThinkProgress has been documenting, a number of Republican lawmakers are risking financial calamity by threatening to vote against raising the debt ceiling unless certain demands are met. Now, at a town hall event last week in Georgia, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) had a particularly absurd ransom to demand for raising the debt limit. In an exchange recorded by True South Radio and uploaded on YouTube, Broun said that he wouldn’t vote to hike the ceiling without major cuts. When asked what those cuts would be, Broun said he wants to see the Departments of Education and Energy abolished:

BROUN: I want to make this clear. I will not vote to raise the debt ceiling unless we have major cuts in the size and scope of the federal government.

MULTIPLE CONSTITUENTS: Can you define major?

BROUN: I propose getting rid of the Department of Education. I’d like to get rid of the Department of Energy as well.

Watch it:

The U.S. has already hit its debt limit, but the Treasury Department is taking extraordinary steps to stave off default until early August. So Broun is demanding these departments be abolished within the span of less than three months. At the same town hall, Broun defended his vote to preserve subsidies for big oil companies, saying that while he believes we should “stop all subsidies,” the special tax breaks and expenditures for oil companies don’t really qualify as subsidies.

As ThinkProgress previously reported, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives voted last month to end all federal funding to National Public Radio (NPR), the same day that it rejected an effort to call for an end to the Afghan war, which would save taxpayers 40,000 times more.

Yet despite this GOP assault on public broadcasting, the public is not going along. Only a quarter of Americans support cuts to public broadcasting. This morning, during an appearance on CNN, GOP Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) offered a new justification for cutting grant funding to NPR as well as Planned Parenthood — saying that it is unconstitutional to fund them:

HOST: Defunding Planned Parenthood and defunding NPR and PBS, some might say the Republicans are doing the same thing, telling people what to do with their lives.

BROUN: No, ma’am, absolutely not. In fact, the thing is, we don’t have constitutional authority under the original intent of the Constitution to fund Planned Parenthood or NPR. A lot of things that we’re doing. In fact, Article 1, Section 8 lists or enumerates the powers of Congress to act, and it’s only 18. We should be dealing with national security, national defense, foreign affairs and very little else. We’ve got to find bridges to send those powers back to the states and people as our Founding Fathers meant for them to.

Watch it:

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which Broun cites, says that “Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States.” It is the wording about “general welfare” under which grant funding to organizations like NPR and Planned Parenthood is authorized.

This past Tuesday Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) held a town hall meeting in Oglethorpe County, Georgia. During the question and answer session, one constituent asked a particularly outlandish question. As the Athens Banner Herald reports, the questioner asked, “Who’s going to shoot Obama?” The question apparently evoked laughter from the town hall meeting.

Rather than outright condemning the suggestion of violence, Broun tried to show empathy for the questioner by saying that he knows “there’s a lot of frustration with this president” and that he hopes we can “elect somebody who’s going to be a conservative” next year:

The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Out of all of the members Congress, Broun has used perhaps the most vitriolic rhetoric to describe his political opponents, including Obama. He has previously said that Democrats want to take over “all of society,” that the president was spewing “venom” at the State of the Union, that the stimulus and health care laws were going to “kill” the elderly, that clean energy legislation would make southerners die from hyperthermia, and has compared Obama to Hitler, complete with a claim that the president is secretly assembling a version of the Hitler Youth.

In a statement provided to the Athens Banner Herald, a Broun spokesman said, “Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on.” Yet until Broun stops telling his constituents that all of his political opponents are plotting to kill Americans with diabolical fascist plots, he should expect more and more of them to think violence is justified.

Last week, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) said he wouldn’t participate in the bipartisan seating intermingling at President Obama’s State of the Union yesterday. “Sitting together being kissy kissy is just another way to try to silence Republicans,” Broun complained, warning that Obama would “spew” his rhetorical “venom” at members.

Except during the speech, it was Broun spewing venom, tweeting, “Mr. President, you don’t believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism.” And on a right-wing radio show this afternoon, Broun upped the ante:

BROUN: The Republican Party is the party of K-N-O-W. We know how to lower the cost of health care. We know how to take care of the uninsurable. We know how to put patients in charge of their health care and have a market-based, patient centered health care system that’s not going to kill jobs like ObamaCare is going to do. And we know how to stimulate the economy. We know how to create jobs in the private sector. We know how to prevent this huge government take over of health care as well as all of society.

But we are the party of N-O against socialism and that’s what Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama have been proposing is a greater take over of everything in human endeavor in America.

Listen here:

Ironically, seconds after Broun claimed the GOP is “The Party of Know,” Broun reiterated two well-worn falsehoods Republicans have been spreading around since the health care debate began in 2009. PolitiFact.com recently reported that Broun’s claim that the new health care law is “job killing” just isn’t true:

Republicans have used the “job-killing” claim hundreds of times — so often that they used the phrase in the name of the [repeal] bill. It implies that job losses will be one of the most significant effects of the law. But they have flimsy evidence to back it up.

The phrase suggests a massive decline in employment, but the data doesn’t support that. The Republican evidence is extrapolated from a report that was talking about a reduction in the labor supply rather than the loss of jobs, or based on measures that weren’t included in the final health care law. We rate the statement False.

Broun also said that the new health reform law is a “huge government take over of health care.” PolitiFact gave that whopper its “Lie of the Year” award for 2010. It seems like Broun needs to work on a new name for his party.