- Joined
- Jul 20, 2005
- Messages
- 20,688
- Reaction score
- 7,320
- Location
- Washington, DC
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
I'm curious if any of you who oppose raising the debt ceiling (or encourage political brinkmanship in the hopes that your side will win a great deal at the eleventh hour) have actually considered the consequences of a default.
If the debt ceiling is not raised, the government is not going to have enough money to meet its obligations. It needs approximately $318 billion just to pay its August bills. Additionally, the government has about $500 billion in debt that is coming due in August; if we are in default or de-facto default at the time, chances are at least some of that debt will not be rolled over and we'll have to come up with billions more.
So I'm curious as to which of our bills you think should not be paid. Should we literally default on our debt? Should we stop paying our soldiers? Should we suddenly cut retirees off from social security and Medicare? Should we shut down the entire federal government (including "essential" services) by ceasing payments on our discretionary budget? Or should we just print more money to cover all of these expenses?
My prediction: None of the people encouraging a default will have any legitimate answer, and they'll resent the entire premise of this question: that we need money to pay for things.
If the debt ceiling is not raised, the government is not going to have enough money to meet its obligations. It needs approximately $318 billion just to pay its August bills. Additionally, the government has about $500 billion in debt that is coming due in August; if we are in default or de-facto default at the time, chances are at least some of that debt will not be rolled over and we'll have to come up with billions more.
So I'm curious as to which of our bills you think should not be paid. Should we literally default on our debt? Should we stop paying our soldiers? Should we suddenly cut retirees off from social security and Medicare? Should we shut down the entire federal government (including "essential" services) by ceasing payments on our discretionary budget? Or should we just print more money to cover all of these expenses?
My prediction: None of the people encouraging a default will have any legitimate answer, and they'll resent the entire premise of this question: that we need money to pay for things.