The Debt Debate: What About Honor?

Michele Bachmann, the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota and Presidential candidate, makes a great point of having raised five children and 23 foster children. And, judging from afar, I bet she’s a helluva good mother, politics aside. But I can’t help wondering: What does Michele Bachmann teach all those kids about the importance of living up to your obligations?

Say, for example, that one of them owed some people, oh, about $14.3 trillion dollars. Would Bachmann tell her children that a debt is a moral obligation that an honorable person will go to great lengths to pay if at all possible? Or would she tell them, Well, it all depends. Whether you pay back money that’s been loaned to you is a practical question. And if you calculate that you’d be better off reneging, then by all means do so. It’s perfectly O.K.