In the context of a past generation of government sponsored entities, the answer was 'yes', they could go bankrupt but the political branches will bail them out. The issue here is that the political branches are in the middle of being bailed out themselves by the central banks, and it's been going on for a decade or two, so conceptually there is a serious problem with politicians bailing the bailer. The fact that headlines like this are being written, regardless of the answer, should put everyone on alert for the possibility the can no longer can be kicked further down the road the way it has until now.