On the Claim that Republicans Want a Debt Default

By NATE SILVER
NYT

One proposition that I’ve heard expressed by some commentators is that Republicans believe they would benefit politically from a debt default and the subsequent economic crisis that it might create — as could very easily be triggered by a failure to raise the federal debt ceiling.

I tend to view elected officials as a Machiavellian lot — but I’m not sure that this conclusion about the political consequences of a debt default is so self-evident. A few things to consider:

1. As I wrote a couple of months ago, the negotiations are not truly a zero-sum game. Rather, there is a quite tangible possibility that all incumbents — including Mr. Obama and the Republicans in Congress — would be worse off if a debt default prompted another economic crisis. Your typical Republican in Congress cares a lot about seeing that Mr. Obama is defeated — but he’ll probably care even more about preserving his own job.

2. One poll suggests that Republicans would incur somewhat more blame than Mr. Obama in the event of a failure to raise the debt ceiling. The difference is modest — 42 percent would blame the Republicans against 33 percent blaming Mr. Obama (with 13 percent suggesting that they’d blame both sides) — but Mr. Obama’s relatively strong personal favorability, coupled with the intrinsic unpopularity of Congress and some of the aesthetic advantages that the White House enjoys in times of national emergency, might imply that while both sides would get lots of blame, the Republicans would get a little bit more of it.

(More here.)