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What Default Would Look Like

What would default look like? It would be scary — and many Americans would feel its impact in terrible ways.

But some really don’t seem to care since they are blinded by other considerations and influences.



6 Responses to “What Default Would Look Like”

  1. Jim Satterfield says:

    Unfortunately, I think Tomasky is quite possibly correct. I don’t think reason rules the Republican Party right now. There are those who have a pathological hatred of Obama and those who are afraid to cross the first group. That seems to be it. Default is a real possibility because I don’t think you could get the House Republicans to vote for McConnell’s Plan B and the only thing that is acceptable to them is for Obama and the Senate Democrats to give the House Republicans everything they want, no exceptions.

  2. Allen says:

    Let see, current budget is good till the end of fiscal year, right? So the President can still prevent default by paying 40 cents on the federal spending dollar to bond holders, meaning he will have to cut federal spending immediately, but HE gets to decide where to make those cuts. That will cause havoc also because however he cuts that 40 cents it‘s going to be a mess.

    I cannot imagine why on earth the Republicans won’t agree to a 2 to 5 percent tax increase for wealthy people and corporations. Makes no sense.

  3. Absalon says:

    “I cannot imagine why on earth the Republicans won’t agree to a 2 to 5 percent tax increase for wealthy people and corporations. Makes no sense.”

    Because naturally their unfunded tax breaks, wars and Medicare part D should be paid for by people they dislike and don’t care about, not *real* Americans (capital owners).

  4. ProfElwood says:

    Default is inevitable without some fiscal sanity. No one is talking fiscal sanity yet.

  5. Dr. J says:

    What would default look like? It would be scary — and many Americans would feel its impact in terrible ways.

    Maybe, maybe not.

    Not that I think default would is a good idea, but balancing the budget is. It should hard to raise the limit on the nation’s credit card. Maybe the fight going on in Washington is about the proper size.

  6. DLS says:

    Size and scope (“reach — into everything, even to a totalitarian-minded extent or degree), Dr. J.

    It’s nothing new. The early-1990s fight over the balanced budget amendment then (the one that the Seattle Times buried stories about in the later half of the business section of that newspaper — arrgh) included editorials by the late Eisner (Krugman would have done it nowadays, were he more brave) and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (also now dead) who said that (for them, at least — to be correct about them and what they said) “This is not about a balanced federal budget. It is [to them] about the size and scope of government we [they] want in Washington.”

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