'Defaulting' on America's debt isn’t 'conservatism' — it’s recklessly 'irresponsible': conservative

18 January 2023

With Republicans now in control of the U.S. House of Representatives, many economists are sounding the alarm about the debt ceiling and warning that the United States could suffer a major financial crisis if it defaults on its debt obligations. But one conservative who isn’t happy to see House Republicans play Russian roulette with the U.S. economy is journalist Charlie Sykes.

In a column published by The Bulwark on January 17, the Never Trumper stresses that defaulting on debt obligations isn’t “conservative” — it’s reckless and irresponsible.

Sykes writes, “House Republicans…. now have a grand strategy for refusing to raise the debt limit and shutting down the federal government. ‘Brinksmanship’ seems like a euphemism for this fiscal game of chicken…. So, what happens when the newly puissant Freedom Caucus takes the economy hostage, and the country teeters toward an actual default?.... The right has been nurturing its fantasies of debt-hostage taking for more than a decade, during which we have had more than enough time to research, document, and ponder the dire consequences of this sort of fiscal brinkmanship.”

Michael R. Strain of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Sykes notes, is one of the people who has been sounding the alarm about how dire the consequences would be if the U.S. were to default on its debt obligations. In an op-ed published by AEI’s website on January 11, Strain warned, “The Dow would plunge by thousands of points per day, and the credibility of the U.S. — its trustworthiness as a country that pays its debts on time — would be substantially eroded. After a day or two of this chaos, a clean bill to increase the debt ceiling would pass both houses of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support. Republicans would have accomplished nothing.”

Sykes also quotes Washington Post opinion columnist Catherine Rampell, who warned, “To be clear: Refusing to raise the debt limit, or even coming close to default, would be catastrophic.”

Sykes writes, “Conservatism Inc. — and its many branches and tributaries in the right-wing media ecosystem — is beginning to wax enthusiastic over the hostage taking because burn-it-all down and fiscal conservatism. Think of this as the ‘everything everywhere all at once’ political move of the year, uniting all the strains of the pre-Trumpist, Trumpist and post-Trumpist right: the dead-end demagoguery, performative outrage and nihilistic radicalism that will fire up the base and launch a thousand small-dollar fund-raising appeals.”

Sykes adds that defaulting on the United States’ debt obligations is far removed from the “personal responsibility” that Republicans preached in the past.

“What it is not: anything remotely close to ‘conservatism,’” Sykes laments. “Indeed, it’s hard to imagine anything less conservative than defaulting on the debt you are obligated to pay and shutting down the government you are entrusted to run. The GOP is, after all, a party that claims to stand for financial rectitude, personal responsibility, and fealty to the Constitution.”

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