boehner did force us in 2011 to get very, very close to the debt ceiling. there was no actual default in 2011. we did end up paying all of our bills, but because we got so close to the debt ceiling that year, we didn get our credit rating downgraded for the first time in history. they crunched the numbers later and figured that just that, without default, having people close enough to smell default, that cost the government about $1.3 billion that it would not have otherwise had to spend. so, that s one of the two modern experiences we ve had with getting close to the debt ceiling with this kind of drama. the other one was that one in 1979, and that one was actually worse, even though people don t much think about it and it s not really a high-profile thing in our modern economic history. but in 1979, in the coincident with three mile island debt disaster, we did actually partially default on the debt. congress acted the day before we got to the technical debt ceiling, and they thought
got to the technical debt ceiling, and they thought they had taken care of it, they thought they averted the crisis. but in getting so close, in getting within a day of the deadline, they actually got too close, and treasury bonds that were due to be paid off on april 26th and on may 3rd and on may 10th, all of the bonds that came due on those days didn t get paid back on time. sorry, glitch. we got too close. system overwhelmed. software couldn t handle it. we apparently didn t know how to use those newfangled computing machines at the time, and the treasury was unable to make all of the payments it was supposed to make on all of the debt that we owe. people who held those specific treasury bonds did eventually get paid, but they got paid late. they got paid up to a week late. and those delayed payments do mean that we kind of sort of defaulted on that debt for a few days. and because of that, investors sued the united states of america, saying that the u.s. government had not paid wh
so, people saying they were so concerned about debt and deficits made us add $12 billion extra to the debt for no purpose, for nothing in return. you would have been better offsetting that cash on fire. at least then it could keep you warm. in this case, it was for nothing. so, today we are three days away from the debt ceiling. we are due to hit it on thursday. and aside from fukushima, there s no ongoing nuclear meltdown to distract us from this one. the white house today announced that it was asking the top democrat and the top republican from both the house and the senate to come personally to the white house to talk to president obama and vice president biden face to face, just the six of them to try to work this thing out once and for all. that was due to happen at 3:00 eastern today, but at the very last minute, that meeting was scrapped. senate democrats and republicans said that their own discussions were going well enough that they thought it would be worth
days when these investors should have had their money but they didn t because the u.s. was deadbeat and wasn t paying when we said we would. ultimately, that whole affair ended up hiking the interest rates. sounds boring, but it ends up being really expensive. the treasury had to pay higher interest rates on bonds that it wanted to issue thereafter, which means we ve got to pay people more money for the privilege of them lending us something. interest rights got hiked by a little more than 0.5%, and it may not sound like much, but that hike in the interest rates didn t go back down when the crisis was averted. we proved ourselves to be untrustworthy, and so the hike in the interest rates stuck with us as a sort of penalty for having screwed up. and if you add up the cost of all the extra interest payments we had to make because of that screw-up, in the first decade alone after that little technical just for a second glitchy default in 1979, we spent $12 billion that we would not have o
examples of screwing with the debt ceiling in modern history. there s 2011, of course. house republicans under john boehner did force us in 2011 to get very, very close to the debt ceiling. there was no actual default in 2011. we did end up paying all of our bills, but because we got so close to the debt ceiling that year, we did get our credit year, we did get our credit rating downgraded as a nation for the first time in history. they crunched the numbers later and figured that just that, without default, having people close enough to smell default, that cost the government about $1.3 billion that it would not have otherwise had to spend. so, that s one of the two modern experiences we ve had with getting close to the debt ceiling with this kind of drama. the other one was that one in 1979, and that one was actually worse, even though people don t much think about it and it s not really a high-profile thing in our modern economic history. but in 1979, in the coincident with three mil