The Hill News

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he was “embarrassed for [his] country” during last month’s credit-rating downgrade, and that he hoped Congress would be able to “restore the full faith and credit” of the United States.

“Now, these last few months have been pretty messy,” Cheney said in an interview with Rush Limbaugh reported by The Huffington Post. “I think like a lot of people I was embarrassed when they lowered our credit rating from AAA to [AA+]. I literally felt embarrassed for my country.”

{mosads}Cheney said he hoped that the crisis would encourage legislators to make the “painful” cuts necessary to reduce the deficit.

“I also think that the fact that we’ve gotten to this point where we are faced with a crisis in terms of the debt problem, that that’s going to give those of us who want to address that issue and fix it the leverage that we haven’t had up until now, in terms of insisting on the kinds of policies that will be painful, but in the long run are necessary if we’re going to restore full faith and credit in the United States government,” Cheney said.

In a previous interview with ABC, Cheney had warned GOP presidential candidates about saying they opposed the debt-ceiling increase under any circumstances. But he reiterated his support for using the debt ceiling as a ne! gotiating tool to encourage budget cuts.

“You’v! e gotta maintain the credit worthiness of the United States government,” Cheney said. “And you’ve got an obligation obviously to pay your debts. I didn’t have a problem with the notion that our guys would say, ‘But we’re not doing anything with the debt ceiling until you sign up for deficit reduction.’”