… if you are the United States of America. At least that's some many members of Congress seem to think. That's what the recent Debt Ceiling debacle was all about. The U.S. does not borrow money to pay current expenses – it borrows money to pay items for which it is already obligated. If Congress wants to cut expenses, it should do so by curtailing spending through the budget process - not by refusing to pay bond-holders, government contractors and Social Security recipients, any more than an individual should just refuse to pay his mortgage or utilities. The standoff was not a matter of the two sides being unable to reach an agreement; the idea that there was a disagreement was invalid from the start. It was similar to the case of a firefighter who lights fires because he likes to extinguish them. Columnist Donald Kaul has come up with a good analogy: The com...
My alarm clock goes off every morning at eight, except for the few times when I have a breakfast date. Usually I wake up about an hour before that, or at least I partly wake up. It is important that I remain in a “not quite awake but not quite asleep” state, because I consider that time as the germination period for whatever seeds happen to have blown into my head.