Robert Reich has taken on the fiscal cliff and Moody’s statement that they might downgrade the United States government credit rating. I know: we’ve seen this before. But there is something different. When S&P downgraded us, it was because we weren’t dealing with our debt problem. That was bullshit, of course: there is no debt problem. As Dean Baker notes, we are paying about half as much interest on the debt as we did during the glory days of Reagan, Bush, and Clinton:

Now, Moody’s wants to downgrade our credit rating because we are too concerned about the debt or, more precisely, because we may go over the fiscal cliff and stay there, thus throwing us back into recession. At least this is a reasonable concern. S&P seems to have downgraded us just because they didn’t like the look of us. (Not that I blame them exactly.)

As always, Reich is very informed and thoughtful. But one thing he said really bugged me:

I agree that given that we can borrow money at more or less (Yes, often less!) the rate of inflation, we should be investing in human and physical infrastructure. But it is really not “the world” that is loaning us money; it is “the United States.” Just look at this graph from an article by libertarian nut Nick Gillespie:

As Gillespie writes, “All told, it’s looking like 70 percent of the debt is held by domestic suckers…” He is right on the number, but wrong on the “suckers”: does he really believe that the United States government is going to default on its debt obligations?

We need to understand that our debt is, as Paul Krugman likes to say, money we own to ourselves. We are not beholden to other countries. We are not on the verge of China pulling the rug out from under us and turning us into Greece. As a country, we really are the master of our own destiny.