More From the Marco Rubio GQ Interview

Peter Schorsch spotted this comment from the Marco Rubio interview.

GQ: Who’s your best friend?

Marco Rubio: My wife. We talk every day.

GQ: Besides your wife.

Marco Rubio: [South Carolina Senator and Tea Party favorite] Jim DeMint. He’s a great source of wisdom as a person who’s had to make decisions that have made him unpopular in his own party. Jeb Bush is another guy I admire for his ability to analyze issues and call them for what they are.

DeMint is a source of wisdom? I remember Treasury Secretary having to give DeMint an economics 101 lesson on how the debt ceiling works. From Geithner's letter to DeMint.

In your letter, you suggest that the debt limit should not be raised, and instead that federal debt be "capped" at the current limit. You further propose that after the government's borrowing authority is exhausted in August, the United States should for some indefinate period pay only the interest on its debt, while stopping or delaying payment of a broad swath of other commitments the the country has made under the law.

I have expressed my concerns about this idea before, but I will restate them to be clear: this "prioritization" proposal advocates a radical and deeply irresponsible departure from the commitments by Presidents of both parties, throughout American history, to honor all of the commitments our Nation has made.

The debt limit applies to past decisions of Congress. Increasing the debt limit is necessary to allow the United States to honor obligations previously authorized and appropiated by Congress.

DeMint doesn't realize that he is advocating that the federal government default. Under the Consitution, the federal government must pay its debts. Furthermore, DeMint doesn't know that the debt ceiling involves past spending approved by DeMint and other members of Congress. This is Rubio's source of wisdom.

Section 4 of the 14th amendment makes clear that debt shall be paid.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

DeMint and Rubio are both economic illiterates. No wonder they bound so well.