This is really weird, especially coming when House Speaker John Boehner is ruling out blocking an increase in the debt limit:

New Republican legislation in the House and Senate would force the U.S. government to reroute huge amounts of money to China and other creditors in the event that Congress fails to raise its debt ceiling.

The legislation, pushed in the Senate by Pat Toomey and in the House by Jim Jordan, would require the U.S. Treasury to pay China and other foreign creditors before anyone else -- including Social Security beneficiaries. Under their plan, international holders of U.S. debt would go to the front of the line while American citizens would be forced to the back.

The teahadist theory is that this would prevent a default, but even if it managed to do that, it wouldn't stop a government shutdown, which would be a default by another name. In so doing, it would put the interests of international financiers ahead of the American public. As Chris Van Hollen says:

"What they are saying essentially is that the full faith and credit of the American government extends to a lot of foreign countries, but it doesn't extend to the American people themselves."

With Boehner yesterday ruling out blocking the debt limit increase, this is mostly an interesting story as it relates to the emerging civil war within the GOP's teahadist wing and its leadership, which mostly consists of the same yahoos (like Boehner) who promoted Bush economic policies, including the TARP bailouts. In other words, it's popcorn time.

Join the discussion in Eclectablog's recommended diary, GOP intros bills to "Pay China First" before Soc. Sec. recipients.