What about the hundreds of billions in other obligations? The million and one things the government buys every month to keep everything going? The salaries? Pensions? Social Security? Medicare payments? Won't the government default on at least part of those?
CSM: “Not at all. There is more than enough in the current revenue stream to pay all of the debt obligations. However, the vote buying would certainly be at risk!”
What about the hundreds of billions in other obligations? The million and one things the government buys every month to keep everything going? The salaries? Pensions? Social Security? Medicare payments? Won’t the government default on at least part of those?
I believe the term “default” in this context only applies to the failure to honor *debt* obligations. The only way the US would be in default is if the US Treasury does not pay back the principle on maturing treasury bonds and/or the interest due on existing bonds.
In the last debate about raising the debt ceiling, the Dems and liberals argued that the US Treasury had no authority to prioritize payment of obligations, and therefore any failure to raise the ceiling would automatically put debt (US bonds) obligations into default. This is probably not true. And even if that is true, the current president has not shown much restraint in issuing questionable executive orders. If he really wanted to, he could sign an EO instructing his Treasury Secretary to make honoring US bonds the top priority, and this would make “sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved.”
The Republicans back then tried to pass a law that would make honoring US debt the top priority to prevent a technical default, but of course, the Senate Dems defeated that.
Generally what you are listing is the vote buying activity that I referenced. Given the current revenue stream, if the President prioritized the budget he could cover the debt payments, SS payments, Medicare payments and critical operations would remain intact.
The rest is fluff that needs to be halted anyway, so it wouldn’t hurt anyone to shut it down. However, as we saw during the sequestor, they would actually direct the budget away from the critical items so that they could CLAIM that we are defaulting and that you are an evil bastige!