The people who are betting trillions of dollars in financial markets have considerable confidence in the ability of the U.S. government to pays its debts, as demonstrated by the fact that the interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds remain extraordinarily low. However a front page Washington Post article told readers that these actors are mistaken, actually the United States is, “a nation already mired in red ink.”

Most newspapers would restrict such sweeping and unsupported assertions to the editorial pages, however the Washington Post has made debt reduction a crusade. It has little concern for standard journalistic practices in pressing this agenda.