my view

Driving over the default cliff

By TOM DENTON
Posted 5/17/23

I recently applied for an increase in our credit limit from our credit card company. The representative on the phone said he couldn’t tell me the reason we were denied. (Was the reason too …

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my view

Driving over the default cliff

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I recently applied for an increase in our credit limit from our credit card company. The representative on the phone said he couldn’t tell me the reason we were denied. (Was the reason too humiliating to verbalize?) 

A subsequent written, mailed denial explained that our credit report “showed a bankruptcy or financial counseling plan.”  

Both claims were categorically false. Perplexed, I immediately contacted Equifax, which reassured me that our credit was just fine and offered to correct our company’s mistaken judgment.

I was outraged that our financial trustworthiness would be thus branded, but knew that the grim gatekeeper of our credit was in charge here and would be guided only by cool hard facts and assurances of its own interests.   

Our brush with the stigma of financial ruin was brief and absurd, but also a little nerve-wracking. Currently, radical Republicans in Washington are more than frightening as they threaten to push our country into default unless their demands for drastic spending cuts are met.  

After the projected date of June 1, America in default would be unable to pay its debts—its bills for past expenses—to creditors domestic and foreign, to government workers, to veterans, to Social Security recipients—the list goes on.  Our ability to sell treasury bonds would dry up; who would turn over their money to deadbeats? The GOP default threat would undermine the status of the dollar as the accepted worldwide standard currency, and the fragile economies of smaller nations would be upended by the ensuing financial chaos.

Republicans seem not to be deterred by the prospective stain and stigma of a bankrupt USA, nor by the warnings of economists and business leaders. Self-proclaimed “moderates” like Rep. Mark Molinaro must listen to their constituents and demand that their GOP leaders stop using default as a hostage. Thelma and Louise drove over the cliff for their freedom. MAGA nihilists will do it despite our cries to STOP.  

Tom Denton lives in New Paltz, NY.

default, credit limit, debt, republican, maga, mark molinaro

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