In Wisconsin, the real struggle is over power

By Ezra Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 21, 2011

You've probably heard politicians fret that state governments - or, worse, the federal government - will default on their debts. House Speaker John A. Boehner called the prospect of a federal default "a financial disaster not only for our country, but for the worldwide economy."

And why will it be so bad for the economy? Because the powerful actors who make up the entity we loosely refer to as "the market" - that means everyone from banks to hedge funds to China - will go nuts. They'll realize we're fiscally irresponsible. They'll stop lending us money, or at least start charging us more when they do. Interest rates will skyrocket, and the economy will grind to a halt.

So America's various governmental entities are looking for ways to avoid defaulting on their debt - or at least defaulting on their debt to the powerful. That addendum is important, because one of the strategies that's emerging is to default on debt to the less powerful, the people who don't have the power to wreck our economy.

This is a crucial fact about the economy: power matters. It's worth more, in many cases, than money. And that's what's really at issue in Wisconsin.

(More here.)