Too close this time: The country’s close brush with default exposed the extreme pols of the left and right who voted to crash the economy

When Alexander Hamilton, as the first Treasury secretary, starting in 1789, began issuing debt to borrow on the good name of the new government of the United States until now, there has never been a default on its loans. Ever. That’s 234 years of paying its obligations despite a Civil War, a Great Depression and a couple of world wars. The long streak was going to stop tomorrow, X-date, said Janet Yellen — Hamilton’s successor as the 78th secretary — when the cash would be exhausted and creditors would have gone unpaid. That was the prescription urged by Dr. Donald Trump, becoming a deadbeat n...