WHEN THE REAL DEBT CEILING CRASHES IN.

Nobody will know the day or the hour.  In "Debt Doom is Coming," Glenn "Insta Pundit" Reynolds breaks down what we will bear when that comes.

Of course, every institution in our government, media, and academia will be – and to a degree already is – mobilized to paper over the problem as long as possible, and then for a bit after that.  But the truth is, there was some major enthusiasm for curbing spending during the Tea Party era, a decade-and-a-half ago, but that enthusiasm, along with the Tea Part movement itself, was quickly abandoned and undercut by the political establishment (along a more or less bipartisan line) because cutting spending to sustainable levels would have knocked a lot of politicians off the gravy train.  Something that nobody who matters wants to be done, won’t be, at least not any time soon.

And who knows?  Politicians have been kicking the national-debt can down the road for as long as I’ve been alive.  There were predictions of doom at debt levels that seemed high back then, but that seem comically low now.  So maybe they’ll keep that can moving for a while longer.  Maybe new technology developments in AI, robotics, or nanotechnology will set off so much economic growth that we’ll grow our way out of it.  Maybe they’ll be able to inflate it away to manageable levels without setting off hyperinflation or riots.  Maybe aliens will come and offer us a new monetary system that will make debt meaningless, or enslave us all as food animals, also making debt meaningless.

That's being silly to make a point.  Read on, however, and consider how best to act locally.

A financial collapse will – like all crises and catastrophes – also be a political opportunity for someone. You can bet that the lefties will be ready to move in and take advantage. But what about people on the small-government side?

We need to think about what resources will be available, and how to put them to use. State and local governments will still be there if the federal government goes broke. States have their own credit ratings, their own bureaucracy, their own police and military forces. Local governments retain the main role in maintaining order and providing essential services. States have issued their own currency in the past, and can do it again if necessary.

States can do a lot of things when the federal government is rendered largely helpless. In a limited way, activist governors like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott have demonstrated some of that. If I were preparing my state for federal collapse, I’d make sure its debt was manageable and its credit good, invest its “rainy day fund” in things that would still be valuable when treasuries weren’t, and build up my State Guard, state police, and other state resources so that they could pick up some of the slack when the feds fell down. I’d also start boosting my state’s independence in terms of resources and food supplies as much as possible. Also, stockpiles of essential medical supplies and other goods, mutual aid agreements with neighboring states, emergency communications systems independent of federal networks, plans to temporarily pay unpaid federal workers, or find them alternative employment, and more.

There’s only so much you can do with that, but I’d do what I could.

He also proposes a number of changes to the national government, including an Article Five constitutional convention, and an enlargement of the House of Representatives, both of which might be worth considering whether the Federal Reserve Notes are as solid as the old Pennsylvania Railroad or not worth a continental.