Seriously.... For Fiscal Year 2011, Treasury expects $2.23 trillion in revenues, from which it must pay bond holders $213 billion in interest. NOTE: That’s less than 10% of revenue.
As Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) explains, if Treasury can manage this, America will not default (if they can’t manage this, Tim Geithner needs to be shown the door, PRONTO).
You have to realize how most governments around the country react to a reduction of revenue. Rather than cut the fat such as bloated layers of management and administrators, they take the scapel right to the muscle - and cut in the parts of government that actually do something - to pretend that even a small cut will have painful consequences.