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Claims US never defaulted on debt fall short

14 October 2013 19:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. You hear the same proud claim every time Washington wrestles with the debt limit: The United States has never defaulted. But the record's not that clean. America has stiffed creditors on at least two occasions, APA reports quoting Associated Press.

Once, the young nation had a dramatic excuse: The Treasury was empty, the White House and Capitol were charred ruins, even thetroops fighting the War of 1812 weren't getting paid.

A second time, in 1979, was a back-office glitch that ended up costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The Treasury Department blamed it on a crush of paperwork partly caused by lawmakers who — this will sound familiar — bickered too long before raising the nation's debt limit.

These lapses, little noted outside financial circles in their day, are nearly forgotten now.

Indeed, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew frequently declares that the United States has always met all of its obligations; a Treasury spokeswoman declined to discuss any possible exceptions. President Barack Obama, reminding Congress of the urgency of raising the debt limit before a Thursday deadline, warned of "the chaos that could result if, for the first time in our history, we don't pay our bills on time."

Historian Don Hickey isn't surprised the default in November 1814 gets overlooked. After all, he titled his book, "The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict."

"He doesn't know his history," Hickey said of the president. "It's that simple."

To be fair, not many people do. When it comes to the War of 1812, naval heroics and the rockets' red glare get the ink. The failure to pay some bondholders on time doesn't make it into many history texts, said Hickey, a professor at Wayne State College in Nebraska.

And the narrow lapses of the past don't compare with the kind of turmoil Lew predicts would occur these days if Treasury couldn't borrow enough money to pay what it owes to all sorts of people, from overseas bondholders to retirees on Social Security. If that's a financial hurricane, the 1979 Treasury bill glitch was more like a draft of chilly air.