Liberty Under God
MIGHT BE WELL-SERVED BY
Government Defaulting on the Debt

• Refuse to pay all the debts of the Federal Government? 

The "National Debt" is now in the neighborhood of $30 Trillion. That means Congress has borrowed $30 Trillion from various sources to pay for things it couldn't afford.

Not only that, but Congress has made promises: "Vote for me, and I'll give you free stuff in the future!" Congress did not have the money to pay for these benefits. It has no reasonable hope of finding a source to pay for all the things to which Americans now believe they are "entitled."

The amount of free stuff that Congress has promised to voters but cannot pay for is in the neighborhood of $222 Trillion.

This has to be a sign of some kind of mental illness.

That figure of $222 Trillion is called "unfunded liabilities." This includes "entitlements" like Social Security and Medicare.

Congress wants to spend even more money it doesn't have, and it calls these expenditures "investments." "We're investing in America's future!"

Obama's Investment Advice

Should you loan money to a mentally ill person? If you do, should you expect strong men to shake down your neighbor for the money to pay you back?

Lenders to the U.S. not only expect to get their money back, but they expect taxpayers to pay them interest, year after year. The interest payments could foreseeably rise to $900 Billion per year.

Should the government stop paying all that interest and default on its loans? Would that save taxpayers a lot of money? Would defaulting on the debt help our economy?

If I loan money to the Mafia, should you be threatened with violence and compelled to give money to the Mafia so it can make interest payments to me?

If the Mafia loans money to you, are you under a moral or legal obligation to pay the Mafia back? (Yeah, you might get beat up if you don't.)

• The right to command: Does the Mafia have it?
• The duty to obey: Do you have it?

This is the problem of "political authority."

The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer

Consider these articles from the Mises Institute:

• Repudiating the National Debt
• The Economics and Ethics of Government Default, Part I
• The Economics and Ethics of Government Default, Part II
• The Economics and Ethics of Government Default, Part III

"We first have to rid ourselves of the fallacious mindset that conflates public and private, and that treats government debt as if it were a productive contract between two legitimate property owners."
-- Murray N. Rothbard

“Private Sector”	“Public Sector”
Non-“Government” Sector	“Government” Sector
Competitive Sector	Monopoly Sector
Persuasive Sector	Coercive Sector
Peaceful Sector	Violent Sector
Productive Sector	Parasite Sector
Servant Sector	Archist Sector
"Economic Man"	"Political Man"

After being sworn in as President of the United States, George Washington delivered his "Inaugural Address" to a joint session of Congress. In it Washington declared:

[I]t would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves . . . .  In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and . . . can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage.
[W]e ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained . . . .
Messages and Papers of the Presidents, George Washington, Richardson, ed., vol. 1, p.44-45

• A Nation "Under God"
• The Myth of the "Separation of Church and State

next: Campaign Finance, Corruption and the Oath of Office