Historians put an asterisk on US debt claim | AP News # Historians put an asterisk on US debt claim By CONNIE CASS WASHINGTON (AP) — You hear a perfect record cited over and over in the debt limit debate: The United States has never defaulted. Better put an asterisk by that. America has briefly stiffed some of its creditors on at least two occasions. Once, the young nation had a dramatic excuse: The Treasury was empty, the White House and Capitol were charred ruins, even the troops fighting the War of 1812 weren’t getting paid. A second time, in 1979, was a back-office glitch that ended up costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The Treasury Department blamed the mishap on a crush of paperwork partly caused by lawmakers who — this will sound familiar — bickered too long before raising the nation’s debt limit. As Congress again tests the limit, Washington could learn some things from its past. But those periods of missed payments, little noted outside financial circles in their d