Defaulting is a choice.
They have the choice of paying for entitlements or servicing the debt.
They will probably choose to default and then play the typical politician blame game.
Then the lemmings on the left will blame the right and the lemmings on the right will blame the left.
The politicians will smile at each other across the aisle as their faux competition will have worked again as they continue their power trip over the American people.
I’ve read that monthly revenues are on the order of 200B. Debt service is 29B. That leaves more than enough money to pay medicare, social security, veterans.
What it does not leave is enough to cover about 40% of monthly obligations, like the bloated bureaucracy at DOE, ED, etc.