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Re:Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants by jpadkins on Wednesday July 27, 2011 @08:38AM (#2811850)
Congress already passed a bill instructing the Treasury to pay interest on debt, social security, wages of troops in that order. If the President does not follow that law, it's probably an impeachable offense.

The result won't be a default or social security checks not getting sent out, but a normal 1994-style government shutdown.

Re:Game Theory Take On - Washington’s Rogue Elephants by bd_at_rivenhill on Wednesday July 27, 2011 @08:49AM (#2811880)
I know that such a bill was proposed, but was it ever passed? I agree that a shutdown similar to the one that happened in '95-'96 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governmen...) will definitely occur if the ceiling is not raised immediately, but Republicans could conceivably double down their bets and refuse to raise the ceiling until entitlements are affected, which would certainly happen before the president made a decision to curtail current military activities. Does anybody have a reference to the rate at which outflows currently exceed tax revenues to give us an idea of when that point might be reached?