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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion

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To: TimF who wrote (9968)8/2/2011 11:09:17 AM
From: Lane31 Recommendation  Read Replies (1) of 10087
 
I really wish people would stop calling it "default". Hitting a debt limit != default, anymore than hitting the limit on your credit card means your defaulting on it. As long as you make the payments (and the payments for the feds are a relatively small fraction of their revenue) your not defaulting.

Per Webster: Definition of Default
1
:
failure to do something required by duty or law

There may be enough money to service the debt but there would not be enough money to pay all that the government was obligated by law to pay. To avoid default, the government would have to both service the debt and pay all its other legal obligations. I haven't seen any scenario that would enable it to do that.

If your complaint is that people have been saying "default on its debt," you have a point, although there is still some risk.

I agree that the rhetoric has been sloppy in this regard and many people may have been left to think that we would automatically fail to service our debt but I disagree that using the word, "default," is necessarily wrong.

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