From the WASHINGTON POST:
The White House is warning that catastrophe will strike if Congress fails to raise the limit on the national debt: With too little cash to pay creditors, the U.S. government would default. Interest rates would skyrocket. And the economic recovery would collapse.
But behind the scenes, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has already begun juggling the books to conserve cash, draining a special account at the Federal Reserve. And with the debt forecast to hit the legal limit of $14.3 trillion in just a few weeks, he has a range of tools at his disposal, including borrowing money from a pension fund for federal workers…
Geithner also has authority to pay investors first for interest they’re owed on the debt, according to a decades-old legal opinion. A growing number of conservatives argue that by making interest payments first, the government could avoid default and the Obama administration’s predictions of economic Armageddon…
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EDITOR: The proper venue for discussing spending is when the budget is contemplated. By even suggesting that the government will not meet its debt obligation, we undermine the world’s confidence in our integrity and our sanity.
