Echoing his former colleague Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), former Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) teed off on House Republicans’ brinkmanship on the debt ceiling, saying intransigent GOP congressmen are willing to risk destroying the county’s economy to get what they want. Voinovich told Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson:
“They’re playing Russian roulette and all the chambers have a bullet.” […] “They’re flamethrowers. ‘We’re going to get what we want or the country can go to hell.’”
Meanwhile, Bruce Bartlett, a former policy adviser to Presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush, lambasted House Republicans yesterday on MSNBC’s Hardball for playing with fire on the debt ceiling:
I think at this point, there’s nothing that can pass the House of Representatives. … I think a good chunk of the Republican caucus is either stupid, crazy, ignorant or craven cowards, who are desperately afraid of the tea party people, and rightly so.
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Even House Speaker John Bohener (R-OH) admitted that “a lot” of his caucus members are willing to unleash economic “chaos” to get their way on the debt ceiling.