The government is not in danger of defaulting — there is still revenue coming in and it must legally be used to pay interest on the debt.
Not to mention that a lot of the “debt” is money the government loaned itself and is paying itself interest on. The whole thing is a theater of the absurd, like everything else in clown world.
“The government is not in danger of defaulting — there is still revenue coming in and it must legally be used to pay interest on the debt.”
I get that point and have made it myself many times.
What the Biden treasury is saying is that they are currently doing such triage with the federal payments, but revenue still coming in or not by June just doing those measures will still produce a shortfall that could cause a default, unless, and that unless is what they want to avoid; they want to avoid temporarily shutting down (putting on furlough) varies segments of the federal government so that revenunue is preserved to pay for “essentials” and the debt obligations.
Yes, the real choice with no increase in the debt ceiling is not a raise in the debt ceiling or default, it’s a raise in the debt ceiling or a partial government shutdown. Notice that niether side is mentioning a possible shutdown. A shutdown will not be a win for either side politically.
Without controlling the Senate, the GOp has to fight for the best it can get at this time - spending reductions this year and next in exchange for a temporary - six month - increase in the debt ceiling. Then if Biden wants he can create the crisis again by vetoing a GOP backed budget later this year, forcing the same crisis and negotiations going on now.