Default

Default, defined as failure to act, neglect, failure to meet a
financial obligation. The full faith and credit of the United
States of America appear to be in question. Will we, the richest
nation in the world, default, fail to meet our financial
obligations to our creditors?  Unthinkable says almost everyone in
the Administration and the Congress. And yet the unthinkable seems
pretty close to happening. One side says they will not authorize
raising the debt ceiling, which means default, without drastic
spending cuts and no tax increases. The other side says the only
way to reduce the debt over the long haul is to combine spending
cuts with some means of increasing revenue, whether one calls it
a tax increase or not. But both sides know that there is no time,
no long haul, that will put off default unless the debt ceiling is
raised.
One recalls the first decades of our Republic. Alexander
Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary, believed in a strong
central government, a national bank, and the “implied”
constitutional authority to fund a national debt. Thomas Jefferson,
the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and
the third President, was opposed to all three. The two men
apparently held each other in contempt.  Jefferson’s vice
president, Aaron Burr, seemingly hated Hamilton, challenged him to
a duel, and killed him. Whatever one may think about the
polarization of politics in our own time, there haven’t been any
duels.
I am certainly concerned about the possibility that my nation
may default, may fail to meet its financial obligations. I’m a
Social Security beneficiary, I’m on Medicare, and we have a small
annuity which has already taken a bit of a beating and which may
well lose much of its remaining value as financial markets react to
the possibility or fact of default. But such financial concerns,
important as they are for me and millions of my fellow citizen, are
not the only or the most important matters at stake. Full faith and
credit: these are words that have a significance beyond the context
of domestic and international finance.  As a Christian my ultimate
faith is in God and God alone, but under that I have had a good
measure of faith in the experiment of nationhood which Abraham
Lincoln described as being conceived in liberty and dedicated to
the principle that all men are created equal. He believed that the
Civil War was, at bottom, about whether a nation so conceived and
so dedicated could endure, or if the nation would default, if it
would fail to act, fail to uphold its most fundamental values. 
While the current financial “crisis” is not comparable in moral and
historical magnitude with the Civil War, it does, nevertheless,
raise the question of governmental faithfulness and creditability
on the one hand, and governmental failure on the other.
We hear of “failed states” in various parts of the world. These
are states in which the official government simply cannot
govern. There is no public safety, the economy is in ruin,
corruption is rampant, the rule of law is openly mocked, and forces
of lawlessness rule by brute power alone. Again, the comparison may
be wildly exaggerated. We may think that default on the national
debt and failure to agree on economic policy cannot be compared
with default on our most fundamental moral and spiritual values as
a nation, and the failure of  the experiment of liberty and
equality.  And yet, the failure, the fall, of all great nations,
and down through history there have been many such failures and
falls, begins somewhere, begins with the loss of faith and credit
in the eyes of the world, and more importantly, the loss of faith
and credit in the nation’s own eyes.
Canon Marvin Bowers is a retired clergyman and may be
reached at fr************@gm***.com.