Ben Carson said he is “surprised” how quickly he has risen in the polls and defended his recent controversial comments about guns and the Holocaust in an interview on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on Friday.
Advertisement
“I would provide the kind of leadership that says, ‘Get on the stick guys, and stop messing around, and cut where you need to cut, because we’re not raising any spending limits, period, ‘” said Carson, who added he supports 3 percent to 4 percent across the board cuts to the federal budget.
“What I’m saying is what we have to do is restructure the way that we create debt”. In an interview with “Marketplace” earlier this week, Carson seemed to confuse hiking the debt ceiling with the budget. “I mean if we continue along this, where does it stop?”
“In a situation where you had a madman who was systematically assassinating people after asking them a question and they’re all there waiting their turn, I would not wait my turn”, Carson said.
The debt limit, which now stands at $18.1 trillion, caps the amount of money that the government can borrow to pay for the spending that has been authorized by Congress. “It’s a matter of what are we going to do for the downtrodden in our society?” And there are real consequences if we decline to raise the debt limit. I can’t answer that question because that would involve a lot of negotiation, you know compatibility issues, and I would have to make a decision whether that was really the best use of my time and my influence.
But Carson suggested a different path.
In an interview with NPR’s Kai Ryssdal, Carson outlined his plan for balancing the budget by allowing the government to “shrink by attrition”, calling for a freeze on federal expenditures and staffing for three to four years and requiring each federal agency to make corresponding cuts. If, in fact, we have a number of different areas that are contributing to the increasing expenditures and the continued expenditures that are putting us further and further into the hole.
Carson issued a statement Thursday saying that “critics have blown this way out of proportion, or more correctly, don’t appreciate my resolve to get our fiscal house in order”.
Ignoring that the debt ceiling isn’t a spending ceiling per se, Carson is forcing a scenario where Congress would have to immediately cut payments that it had promised, like to Social Security beneficiaries.
“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation”, Carson said last month on NBC’s “Meet the Press” – drawing sharp criticism from Democrats.
Advertisement
Carson:I think our debt is horrendous. “Exactly”, responded Carson. “OK”, said the interviewer, in a dry tone.
