For Many Hard-Liners, Debt Default Is the Goal

[IsItJustMe]

Economix
October 14, 2013, 5:05 pm
By BRUCE BARTLETT

This week, according to the Treasury Department, it will exhaust its “extraordinary” measures to avoid hitting a hard debt ceiling. It is not known precisely the date at which it will lack the cash to pay interest on the national debt, but on the day that happens, the United States will be in default.



Today’s Economist

Perspectives from expert contributors.
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The Obama administration and those on Wall Street have long thought that such a prospect was so horrifying that it would necessarily lead to resolution of the current budget impasse. What I don’t think they understand is that there has been a movement under way for some years among right-wing economists and activists not merely to default on the debt, but even to repudiate it.

Those making this argument are largely unknown to professional economists and journalists, but their research permeates the obscure Web sites where Tea Party members get their ideas. And not all are obscure. The late Nobel Prize-winning economist James Buchanan supported debt default, as has the Harvard historian Niall Ferguson.

I have previously noted that defeated Southerners were very hostile to being taxed to repay the Union debt after the Civil War, while the Confederate debt was repudiated and not permitted to be repaid by the states. This is the reason that Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing the validity of the national debt, was included in that amendment.

The Columbia University historian Eric Foner, an expert on the Civil War, recently recounted the debate over the postwar debt and demands by Southerners for repudiating the Union debt, which are echoed by many default advocates today. In those days, it was Democrats who supported default while Republicans opposed it; today it is the reverse. Read more…
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I don't think Obama, Wall Street or the majority of the American public really gets it yet.

These people truly want to burn down the house and bring this country to its knees and thus taking us back a century.

This is extremely dangerous and it looks like some dark days ahead with an ever increasing rate of turmoil and governmental dysfunction. It looks to me that they are trying to start another civil war.

The only way forward that I can for see is that Obama is going to have to exercise some extra ordinary constitutional means to eventually stabilize the situations.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Thank you for this very important post. It is a scary situation.

I hope we can avoid this dysfunction.

[melody]

2. The Karl Rove/corporate GOP tactic has always been to use the crazies

What we need to protect ourselves against are the Palins and her ilk trying to take over the reins.

[nxylas]

6. Reminds me of the German aristocrat in Cabaret

Early on in the film (I haven't seen the stage version), Christopher Isherwood is startled by a near-riot of Nazi thugs. His companion, a member of the German old guard explains that the Nazis are useful for keeping the Bolsheviks in check and that "they can control the Bolsheviks and then we can control them".
"We?"
"Germany".

Sound familiar?

[melody]

10. A well-tried political tactic by all fascists n/t

[RobertEarl]

3. These people hate America

They hate the America that takes care of the less wealthy, except to drop bombs on their heads or throw them in prison.

It really amazes me that on DU are still some people who still consider that working with these hateful jerks is gonna get the country any progress.

They can not be dealt with on a reasonable level, so just stop trying to kiss their asses. And Obama may just be learning that lesson, finally.

[gopiscrap]

4. Yup I am afraid that is there game plan also

[dkf]

5. Is there more? Any links?

I smh. This makes no sense to me

[JDPriestly]

7. Here you go.

Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of the forthcoming book “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take.”

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/for-many-hard-liners-debt-default-is-the-goal/

It is essentially a Republican piece. Obnoxious.

[dkf]

9. Wow is this guy advocating for a default?

Okay I'll read the piece now.

[dkf]

11. Ohhhhhh. Damn it is radical...

"if the Treasury were to default, no one would ever lend it money again, thus imposing a balanced budget; the government could only spend as much as tax revenue permitted."

[JDPriestly]

15. Sounds like that Republican really wants the US to be foreclosed.

The Republicans are stopping science. Physical and biological scientists rely on government data from the NIH, NASA, the Agriculture Dept., the EPA., even the military. Social scientists and economists rely on data from all sorts of government agencies. Republicans are lost in the past. They don't care whether America continues to be a leader in the world.

The Republican Party relies on ignorance to keep it going. Americans take for granted that we have satellites in space, that we track so many important agricultural, weather, etc. data. They don't even know these things are being done because our scientists work carefully and quietly behind the scenes.

It's very sad. Football makes the headlines. Studies of the toxicity of new chemicals and the functioning of new materials do not. Therefore to the ignoramuses in the Republican Party like Rush Limbaugh they don't exist and are of no importance.

Frankly if the Southern, primarily Republicans decided to secede into the ignorant potholes they call their states at this point, I would say good riddance and invite their scientists to the North -- New York, Massachusetts, California and Oregon in particular. Charge Texas a huge fee to transport Canadian tar sands through Northern states or don't allow them to do it at all. We could focus on alternative energy up here where people are educated and want to live well.

The Republican states would soon follow. We could allow a few in the North to stay with us. Let Texas and Alabama make their states into slums. Let's keep our environment healthy. We can tax whatever they bring into our states. I'm not pushing anyone out of the US, but if they want to go, I say we should let them.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

8. Some of these idiots think they can solve it all with a hail and hearty "FU" to China.

[phantom power]

16. I get the impression that few people realize that ~80% of our debt is owed to *ourselves*

Defaulting on our debt mostly fucks ourselves over.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. These idiots believe every dollar the government spends makes them poorer.

[ffr]

12. Hard liners? Then they're all hard liners and they want default.

Reid and Obama better have a plan B that can be administered before McConnell and Boehner run out the clock.

They have but one goal. Do not underestimate their craftiness. They're going to make this happen. Just you watch.

[RainDog]

13. So this explains Niall Ferguson's recent attack on Krugman

He's trying to bolster his cred as an economist by smear campaign.

classy.

[RainDog]

14. Bartlett is a conservative, btw

here's a link to the article, too.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/for-many-hard-liners-debt-default-is-the-goal/

This moment reminds me when conservatives were trying to talk some sense into Americans while Bush was trying to wage wars without funding them, privatizing the military and intel and ginning up "evidence" to invade Iraq.

[flamingdem]

17. Everyone needs to realize they'll do ANYTHING

They must be treated without mercy.

Sometimes educated people lack street smarts. These thugs needed to be checked before now. Too late to call them dangerous minutes before they pull off their goal.