Regardless of the driver's motivations, the result is the same: The car is in the ditch.

Regardless of the driver's motivations, the result is the same: The car is in the ditch.

Republican intransigence and extremism is obviously the major impediment to a reasonable debt ceiling proposal. But there's also a high caliber of stupidity at work, as several Republicans have recently shown.

Utah's Mike Lee is outraged (outraged!) that President Obama said that Social Security checks might be endangered if the debt ceiling isn't raised. The fact that Lee doesn't believe that Social Security is constitutional serves as kind of a clue that his outrage is maybe not wholly sincere, but let's set it aside for a second and just evaluate his statement on the merits. Lee said:

I mean, look, when we’re bringing it about $200 billion a month, and our interest payments are less than 10 percent of that, and Social Security payments are about $50 billion, why on earth would you cut Social Security checks first? That doesn’t make any sense to me and I think it’s insulting to America’s retirees.

However, as Ian Millhiser writes:

Unless the debt ceiling is raised, America is no longer able to borrow more money, and our bank account runs dry on Aug. 2. On Aug. 3, the federal government is supposed to mail out about $23 billion in Social Security benefits, but it will only take in about $12 billion in taxes — leaving an $11 billion shortfall. It won’t matter whether the government will eventually collect the “$200 billion a month” that Lee refers to, because only a fraction of that money will actually be in our bank account when Social Security’s bill comes due.

In short, Lee is as innumerate as he is dishonest. Alabama's Mo Brooks, meanwhile, manages to display that he doesn't understand the concepts of debt ceiling, default, government spending or credit ratings:

"A debt-ceiling problem, as large as it is, is not anywhere near as a big or as bad as" that, Brooks said. If Aug. 2 arrives without a deal, Brooks said, the federal government could continue paying creditors. He said that a show of tough fiscal self-discipline could actually improve creditors’ confidence. “There should be no default on August 2,” Brooks said. “In fact, our credit rating should be improved by not raising the debt ceiling.”

Yes, they should invent a whole new AAAA bond rating for the US if it defaults. Meanwhile, can I recommend to Rep. Brooks that he stop paying his mortgage to improve his own personal credit rating?

Arkansas's Rick Crawford is going Paul Ryan one step more crazy-stupid. Where Ryan thinks that a few days of missed payments wouldn't be so bad (he's wrong) because it would force the government to tighten its belt, Crawford thinks, "That wouldn’t work for just a few days. That would work for a few years."

Here we have claims from members of Congress that default would or should be good for the American economy. The reality? Both Moody's and Standard & Poor's have said the nation's credit rating is at risk for downgrade because the debt ceiling may not be raised. And President Obama was right when he said Social Security checks might be endangered.

As a whole, the problem with congressional Republicans is the intransigent extremism, and maybe there's no real point in trying to figure out to what degree it's ignorance and stupidity speaking. But wow.