Former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has a term for those of his Republican colleagues willing to shoot the hostage, that is, the U.S. economy. As he worried in April 2011:
"The people who are threatening not to pass the debt ceiling are our version of al Qaeda terrorists. Really. They're really putting our whole society at risk by threatening to round up 50 percent of the members of the Congress, who are loony, who would put our credit at risk."
