For Many Hard-Liners, Debt Default Is the Goal

Bruce Bartlett, domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and as a Treasury official under George H. W. Bush (well known left-wing radicals both):

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.

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.

In other words, these right-wingers aren’t using the threat of debt default to undo the Affordable Care Act — they’re using the threat of undoing the Affordable Care Act (which they know/hope Democrats will not agree to) to get what they really want: putting the United States of America into default.

★ Tuesday, 15 October 2013