Will Bush Default on the Public Debt?

Bush came out yesterday to say that the $700M in T-bills for Social Security are worthless, and that Social Security has no money. This NYTimes Op Ed has criticized him because the implication is that all $2 Trillion worth of T-bills held by China and Japan is also worthless.

So is Bush's "let's shore up social security" actually a semaphore for an extremely dangerous fiscal and foreign policy decision he intends to make -- that is, purposely defaulting on our international debt? If he decided to default, all that $2Trillion that China and Japan gave us would be wiped out, and it might bankrupt both countries. Probably, China would invade us, and Japan would fall into the ocean.

You can say "No chance. That could never happen. It would be unbelievably irresponsible," but Bush has shown himself quite comfortable doing unbelievably irresponsible things.