“Those who would block debt hike are like al Qaeda”

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill compared lawmakers trying to block a debt-ceiling increase to terrorists.

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill compared lawmakers trying to block raising the debt ceiling to “al Qaeda terrorists.”

“The people who are threatening not to pass the debt ceiling are our version of al Qaeda terrorists. Really,” O’Neill, Treasury secretary in the Republican administration of George W. Bush, said Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s InBusiness with Margaret Brennan.

“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,” O’Neill said.

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