I am doing what I can to help the United States pay its bills. Above is a picture of a check made out to the Treasury of the United States of America, for the purpose of meeting the country’s financial obligations (i.e paying the individuals who finance our country’s budget deficit, the international trade deficit, and the resulting national debt from both). It is what I can afford, as an individual who is struggling to pay for one more year of college in addition to the debt that I created as a result of taking out private loans to finance previous years of college. I intend to send this check to Washington D.C. Rest assured this is one tax deduction I will not be claiming.

In the time I have spent out of school I have come to respect all an education can bring. In addition, I have learned that four continuous years of collegiate learning are not for everyone. Unfortunately, I learned the latter the hard way. To an extent, it is why I had respect for House Speaker John Boehner, he shows that not everyone needs to complete college “on time” to be a successful individual. That is a powerful message.

At the same time, our country seems dangerously close to learning a much different lesson the hard way. Our inability to pay our bills as a nation is not something to be treated with indifference. Our inability to pay should not be something we, as United States citizens, should scoff at and simply hope the best will come out of the situation. From personal experience, putting your fate into the hands of others is not a gamble one should ever take if it can be avoided.

It sucks to have no recourse for a what you believe to be a bad decision, other than to live with the outcome. In this case the hard lesson we are coming close to leaning is what happens if the United States of America cannot hand out more IOUs. As I understand it, bond rating agencies would lower their belief in the United States’ ability to pay it bills (a.k.a. creditworthiness). Part of the result of not being able to pay for what has already been spent would be more financial hardship for individuals already struggling to make ends meet. In essence, the decisions by the bond rating agencies to lower the creditworthiness of the United States would be a bad decision (in the eyes of all future U.S. citizen borrowers) we would have to accept. Though I do not understand the finer points of either of the major proposals to cut the budget deficit or curtail government spending I get the sense both would create hardship for individuals who could do without such strain. Personally, I would hate to see the interest rates for my student loans jump higher than than their current levels. At the end of the day maintaining our ability to pay our bills as a nation, even in the face of such controversy over how to accomplish that goal, would be a powerful message.

Why am I doing this? In recent history, we can think back to the government bailout of the United States banking industry. We, as United States citizens, were told the banks were too big to fail. If the U.S. banks failed the results would be catastrophic to the way we lived our lives. As a result we became partial owners of a number of United States banks for the purpose of preventing them from collapsing. Looking back even further I am drawn to the actions of J.P. Morgan. I talk of the individual, not the bank.  Remembering what I learned about J.P. Morgan in my high school American History class, one fact comes to mind. In 1895, J.P. Morgan bailed out the United States government. When it looked like the United States of America would run out of money, J.P. Morgan, with help from business partners, did what he could to insure the United States would be able to conduct business. You know how everyone is writing that Apple has more money than the United States government? John Pierpont Morgan had more cash than the government in 1895. Instead of letting the government fail, he, with the help of individuals like John D. Rockefeller, did something about it… twice in a span of just over ten years. I am not saying that Apple should do something but I am making the point there are individuals and corporations who have the power to write a bigger check.

While many argue about the true motives of such actions the fact still remains, when the time for action came, J.P. Morgan stepped up and did what he could to help the United States of America. When August 2nd comes and if there is no compromise on what to do about increasing the United States’ ability to borrow money, I will know I did what I could to put money towards the issue of enabling the United States of America to meet its financial obligations. While it is not 6 or 10 million dollars towards the purchase of bonds it is something. As far as I know, it is more money than most congressional law makers have committed to help our country for the explicit purpose of cutting the budget deficit or lowering our national debt.

Where are our J.P. Morgans and Co. now?