David Corn calls Sarah Palin stupid for telling the truth about the debt ceiling

adambrickley | 9:15 PM on October 14, 2013

Mother Jones’ David Corn took an opportunity today to partake in one of the sacraments of modern liberalism: Irrationally insulting Sarah Palin’s intelligence. Of course, as with most people who attempt that act, Corn ended up making himself look stupid by getting his facts wrong.

In his attempt to bash Palin’s interpretation of the debt ceiling debate, Corn messed up his definition of the debt ceiling so badly that it’s laughable. Blasting Palin for her supposedly-moronic statement that, “the very reason why you raise the debt limit is so that you can incur more debt,” Corn insists that raising the ceiling only means paying down existing debt. Of course, he totally misses the point that the term “debt ceiling” signifies an upper limit on the amount of debt that can be incurred. Therefore, raising said ceiling is, by definition, allowing more debt.

Modern politicians have a tendency to raise the debt ceiling in order to create new debt to pay off old debt, but that doesn’t mean more debt isn’t being created. It’s like charging your credit card bills to a new credit card, and it’s absurd that our nation has reached the point that the only way we can pay off old debt is by incurring more debt.

@DavidCornDC @moodylonerphile "so you can pay the debt you accrued" without having to look for ways to pay it without creating more debt.

— DSM IV (@Stathies) October 14, 2013

@DavidCornDC sorry Dave…Sarah us correct! Same as credit card limit…allows one to incur more debt! Balance or curr debt is amt owed

— Tmflancaster (@tmflancaster) October 14, 2013

The debt limit restricts government expenditures to the amount of its incoming revenues; it does not prohibit the government from servicing its debt. There is no direct connection between the debt limit (actually the exhaustion of the Treasury’s extraordinary measures to raise funds) and a default.

So, David Corn, your absurd need to catch Sarah Palin in a misstatement puts you in direct opposition to the economic eggheads at Moody’s. Nice work, genius.