MONDAY MORNING REFLECTIONS (ON A SUNDAY) - DO WE REALLY WANT TO SEE THE GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN?

The most interesting thing I read on the blogs this week came via Scot McKnight's JESUS CREED.  His is an eclectic blend of theology, book reviews, social commentary, ecclesiastical critiques and political analysis. Here is what McKnight posted.  He called it Apples and Oranges, But ...

From Business Insider:

According to the latest daily statement from the U.S. Treasury, the government had an operating cash balance of $73.8 billion at the end of the day yesterday.
Apple’s last earnings report (PDF here) showed that the company had $76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of June.
In other words, the world’s largest tech company has more cash than the world’s largest sovereign government.
That’s because Apple collects more money than it spends, while the U.S. government does not.

 The government cannot operate at this point without a certain amount of debt, or at least not at this point in history.  Multiple generations political desires and both parties policies have elevated that debt to astronomical levels.  There is more than enough blame to go around.

Now we need to do something, yet know one agrees on what or has the political will to bring it about.  The one person last week to make areal attempt, Speaker of House John Boehner, was roundly shot down by zealots from both parties.  And so now we have the specter of having to officially raise the debt ceiling of this nation or go into bankruptcy.  It's one thing for a person to declare bankruptcy, but when a nation does it there are far reaching consequences.  And since our nation has yet to do it, we only have an inkling of what that might mean to both the total economy and the financial solvency of its citizenry.  Do we really want the country to declare bankruptcy?  As much as I hate thought of deeper debt, I fear the greater risks of bankruptcy.

Raising the debt ceiling cannot be an excuse from stepping away from the mission to balance the budget and reduce our out-of-control and too often whimsical spending.  But bankruptcy at this time I believe will only hurt the little guy.  And the little guys is already reeling.