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Economists like Nobel prize-winner Paul Krugman have warned that Republicans could "blow up the world economy" if they refuse to raise the nation's debt ceiling but Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) disagrees, saying that it could actually be a "wonderful experiment."

During a Tuesday interview with conservative talk show host Sandy Rios, Coburn insisted that only "stupid things" would be shut down if the the debt ceiling was not raised.

"We’re going to collect $200 billion a month if in fact the government were to not extend the debt limit," he insisted. "Social Security would be paid, Medicare would be paid, the essentials would be paid; it’s the non-essentials that wouldn’t be paid, it’s the $250-300 billion a year in stupid things we do that we wouldn’t pay, it’s the programs that aren’t an absolute necessity that wouldn’t get funded, the things that would be a necessity would get funded."

Coburn continued: "It might be a wonderful experiment, regardless who wins the next election or not, just to see if we could live on the money that’s coming into the Treasury and not have to borrow against the future of our children."

Rios said she worried that Republicans would be giving President Barack Obama the power to decide if Social Security and military checks would be delayed if Congress decided to breach the debt limit.

"He can decide it but the point is, look, we’re coming to a point in our country where the cost of our profligate spending in the past is going to be so great and so manipulated that our freedoms are going to be put at risk," the Oklahoma Republican opined. "I’m not sure we should continue down that road. That doesn’t mean federal employees aren’t good employees and it doesn’t mean they don’t do a good job but we have set it up where we’ve undermined self-reliance, we’ve undermined efficiency, we’ve undermined expectations in this country as far as those who work for the federal government and then we’ve overpromised."

"Maybe we lose that battle, but if we lose that battle, we’re going to lose our country anyway. And that’s what people ought to be thinking about."

A study by the Bipartisan Policy Center found that a breach of the debt ceiling would mean that the government could continue to fund interest on the debt, Social Security, Medicare and food stamps at the expense of every other federal program.

“[B]ut doing all that will mean defaulting on everything — really, everything — else,” The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein explained last week. “The FBI will shut down. The people responsible for tracking down loose nukes will lose their jobs. The prisons won’t operate. The biomedical researchers won’t be funded. The court system will close its doors. The tax refunds won’t go out. The Federal Aviation Administration will go offline. The parks will close. Food safety inspections will cease.”

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)

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Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) believes she has uncovered a plot to convince one Supreme Court justice to uphold President Barack Obama's landmark health care law, which she warned would be "the end of our Constitution."

Earlier this week, Bachmann told conservative radio host Sandy Rios that a Time magazine profile of Justice Anthony Kennedy was an attempt to convince him to decide in favor of the Affordable Care Act.

"I think that what we need to recognize is that the left is committed to outcome-based Supreme Court decisions, they want what they want, bottom line, the end justifies the means, they want socialized medicine, they want the government to control it and so they are not above doing anything that they can to influence that one swing voter," she explained.

"By everyone’s estimation, Anthony Kennedy is the justice who will make the decision if we have socialized medicine, which in my opinion will be the end of our Constitution and the end of our republic as we know it. It will bankrupt us, there is no question Obamacare will do that, and it will change our relationship to government forever," Bachmann added. "I think it will be one of the final -- so to speak -- nails in the coffin to our country."

"If he makes that decision and if he is succumbing to flattery in the media -- and these are human beings we’re talking about -- he could potentially be persuaded to go the way of the left, that could be, and I think that’s why it wouldn’t surprise me at all that we are seeing these big, flattery pieces."

Chief Justice John Roberts has hinted that the decision will be handed down next week, possibly Wednesday or Thursday. Some experts predict that the court will strike down the health insurance mandate for individuals, while leaving the rest of the law intact.

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)

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The leader of a Christian think tank is blasting the media for not investigating President Barack Obama's citizenship.

During a Tuesday segment on American Family Association's AFA Today radio program, Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council — a hate group, according the the Southern Poverty Law Center -- encouraged listeners to read an article by conservative columnist Sandy Rios which suggests the president is weakening the U.S. so that communists in Russia can "reclaim power."

"I would encourage you to read the article," Perkins said. "In society today, we throw around labels a lot and I think we've become desensitized and what we're looking here and what's Sandy's bringing up here is not labels. We're not calling somebody a Marxist, a socialist. ... We're looking at facts."

"What the media has done -- going back to our earlier discussion about the media -- is they have attempted to marginalize anyone who challenges this administration on those principles and that driving ideology."

He added: "You know, it goes back to what they did to those that, you know, questioned the issue of his birth certificate. Look, I don't know about all that, but I will tell you this: It's a legitimate issue from the standpoint of what the Constitution says."

"When you put it all together it connects the dots. It makes you wonder why did he risk Congress -- the control of the House -- to push through health care? It's a part of that ideology."

Rios, who also appeared on the program, applauded tea party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL) for accusing up to 81 House Democrats of secretly being members of the Communist Party.

"The point is when Allen refuses to back down, I'm with him all the way," she explained. "The first year that Barack Obama was in office, in the White House, there was an ornament on Christmas Tree of Mao Zedong, which doesn't -- that may sound silly. But that's not silly to me."

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)

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A conservative Fox News contributor insisted on Monday that President Barack Obama had a "disdain" for women that he learned from his "Marxist" father and "communist" mentor.

Fox News contributor Sandy Rios, who is vice president of the conservative political action committee Family-PAC Federal, told host Sean Hannity that Obama did not disagree with CNN contributor Hilary Rosen's assertion that Ann Romney had "never worked a day in her life."

"His father was a Marxist, his mentor was Marxist," Rios explained. "The Marxist theory on women is that they should work just like men. There's a total dripping disdain for women who stay at home and take care of their children. ... This is not an accident. This is what they believe. They hold people like Ann Romney and others of us that have stayed home with our children in complete disregard and disdain."

"That is not what Barack Obama believes," Democratic Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers disagreed. "You don't know what you are talking about. You're making up stuff."

"Frank Marshall Davis was a communist, that was his mentor," Rios replied. "His father was a Marxist."

As Slate's David Weigel noted last year, "Obama's past and philosophy makes it very clear that he only read up seriously on socialism and Marxism when he got to Columbia."

"There is no evidence that Obama ever read his father's economic papers; if he did, it's unclear how dense tracts about the problems of post-colonial Kenya would have influenced his thinking about American urban/class politics and economics."

And contrary to Rios' claims, Obama has spoken out against Rosen's remarks, saying it was "the wrong thing to say."

"It’s not something that I subscribe to," the president told WCMH-TV in Columbus, Ohio last week.

(h/t: The Political Carnival, Media Matters)