Officials Will Brief Public on Which Bills Will Be Paid, Which Not, After Markets Close Friday
ABC News
If there is no clear path out of this morass by tomorrow, sources say that administration officials will likely brief the public on how the Treasury Department will try to handle the bills Congress mandates that the government pay given a situation where Congress has not given them a way to do so.
Look for that briefing to come no earlier than Friday after the markets close at 4 p.m. ET, sources say.
Officials are most concerned about paying the interest on the existing debt, since failure to do so would result in default and almost certain immediate market panic, as well as questions about how Treasury would be able to roll over a pre-existing $87 billion in debt that comes due next week.
After that — a list of priorities, not all of which that can be met. Social Security checks? Medicare? Government workers? Pentagon contractors? Troops’ salaries? The FBI?
Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have been talking privately about a possible way forward should Boehner’s bill fail in the Senate, which seems likely, according to sources familiar with the talks.
Any path forward if the House GOP bill fails in the Senate would likely be some compromise between the House Speaker John Boehner’s bill that would raise the debt ceiling for six months and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s, which would raise it through the beginning of 2013. Their two proposals each seem doomed to fail in the other’s chamber.
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Wild Thing’s comment……..
George Soros must be bursting with joy and how his purchase of Obama has been paying off for him.
The anti-Republican/anti-free market protesters have probably got their signs all printed up and handed out by now — courtesy of George Soros. (Remember, he destroyers economies just for fun)
My bet will be that if there is no compromise and some bills will not be paid, that there will be no cuts in the costs of Congress or the White House.
Tom, good one, I bet your right. They would never sacrifice.
Wild Thing:
George Soros destroys economies for profits. Right now we are the one challenge, the mountain that has never been climbed. If he can destroy the United States economy he will die happy knowing that the historians will know his name a thousand years from now.
If the US survives then they will speak of the US before Wilson after Wilson and before Obama and hopefully after Obama.