Statements that default on U.S. federal obligations is "unthinkable" are obsolete. For some time now various people in and out of government have been thinking out loud that the federal government might reduce Social Security benefits in order to avoid having to redeem the assets of the OASDI trust fund. If this happened, it would be, despite a massive propaganda campaign to convince people to the contrary, in the fullest and strictest legal and moral sense of the term a default of the United States government on its full faith and credit general obligations.