I think it will be a good thing for people in Cascadia when the federal government ceases functioning.

About the only good thing the federal government provides most people, in real terms, is food stamps and unemployment benefits.

I think those slight benefits are outweighed by the over taxation to pay for the goddamn wars. We wouldn’t be talking “fiscal cliffs” if it wasn’t for the war, as war spending is over half of everyone’s federal income taxes. The federal government has spent more money developing one fighter jet that we don't need (the F-35, $323 Billion total program cost) than the entire cost of the Apollo Program two times over.

Fuck the feds, let’m crash.

If Congress fails to do their most basic job and we have to choose which bills to pay, Congressional salaries and health benefits better be first on the chopping block.

@fidelity, you have a very simplified view of how federal spending affects not just you personally, but the world's entire economic system. You may not be getting any checks from them, you will damn sure notice if they run out of money.

Of course @theterminizer, I offered a simplistic view in my comment. I'm actually eagerly looking forward to the collapse, and have prepared my economic choices for the government's inevitable downfall. You can too, just research how to divest from the dollar.

I'm sure you're going to be getting your W2 in the mail soon - take a look at that Federal Income Tax Withheld box and ask yourself if you're OK with half of that being spent on slaughtering innocent people. 18 on Sunday, another 8 today in Pakistan that we know of. I think the whole rest of the world is eagerly looking forward to this government’s collapse too.

The house is filling with toxic sewage (debt) - do you

a) Raise the ceiling
b) Drain the sewage

@D - I like that question, but it's a false analogy, as even if you follow option "b" you can't drain the toxic sewage (debt) entirely. So, what's the point of even trying to plug a hole in a sinking ship, or even trying to bail water on the Titanic?

It's mathematically impossible for this country ever to repay our national debt.

The very currency that we use, the American Dollar, is created through Debt. In addition, there's more Debt than there are Dollars, so even if we used every single Dollar we have to repay the Debt, we would still have more Debt, and you and I would have no Dollars.

I like this option more:
c) Walk away.

This is how this country will eliminate our debts (except it won't be fake, nor as funny as this video, it will be horrible and violent):
http://youtu.be/TRgRz3nSG7o

@fidelity: I won't be happy with the governments slaughtering of innocents until you're amongst their numbers.

@Graham - ha! Cheers.

Good news if you own gold.

http://solari.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/…

Now, if only I could get my hands on that trillion dollar coin....

Well done as usual FA.

"In a poll released Tuesday, Public Policy Polling found that Americans have a higher opinion of traffic jams (56%-34%), colonoscopies (58%-31%) and cockroaches (45%-43%) than Congress. Ditto for love-‘em or hate-‘em band Nickelback (39%-32%), used-car salesmen (57%-32%), root canals (56%-32%) and NFL replacement refs (56%-29%)."

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/01/08/p…