Politicians are making the claim that if the United States Congress does not increase the debt ceiling next month, the United States will default on its credit payments.  This is not true.  It will not happen unless the people in charge want it to.  This is not hard to understand, and I will explain.

Estimated U.S. tax revenue for fiscal year 2021 is 3.863 trillion dollars.  That amounts to a little over 321 billion dollars per month.

In fiscal year 2020 the government spent 6.55 trillion dollars.

These are the 10 biggest expenditures by category.

Even when the debt limit is reached, the government continues to collect tax revenue and will take in around $321 billion in October ($3.863 trillion divided by 12 months).  You have heard that Social Security checks will not go out. Social Security costs $91.7 billion a month and could be paid, and that would still leave another $223.9 billion to spend.

You will hear that the military will not get their checks.  Monthly spending on national defense is 63.5 billion dollars.  You can fund that as well as Social Security and still have $160.4 billion to spend.

You will hear the politicians say Medicare will not be funded.  Monthly Medicare expenditures are $64.7 billion.  After funding Medicare, Defense, and Social Security, you'd still have $95.7 billion left.

But here's the one they scare you with.  The government will default on its debt.  Net interest from debt runs $28.7 billion.  You could fund Social Security, Defense, and Medicare and pay interest on the debt and have money left over.  So the people who say the U.S. will default on its debt are either ignorant or lying to you.  I'll let you be the judge.  And don't get stuck in the numbers.  These numbers may not be exact, but they serve the purpose in order to explain to you the concept.  

Don't get me wrong.  It's not practical to do this forever.  But it does allow time to work out some kind of spending agreement that realizes that our spending habits have outgrown our income.

Republicans who do not support an unconditional debt limit increase are being called irresponsible and reckless.  Democrats control both houses of Congress and the presidency, and they don't need GOP support to raise the debt limit.  The U.S. national debt is over 28 trillion dollars today and rising.  If you continue to add debt to this without a plan on how to get out from under it, that is irresponsible and reckless.  What the national Democrat leaders want is more debt to finance their human infrastructure and inhuman infrastructure bills that are in addition to the annual federal budget expenditures.  Anyone concerned with the future of the country and preserving the currency should take this opportunity to stop the outside of budget expenditures.  We have done without those multi-trillion-dollar spending plans for the last 230 years and we can surely make it without them in the near term. 

Call your congressmen and U.S. senators and see what they say when you point out the government does not have to default on next month's 28.7-billion-dollar debt payment.  I wonder how many of them know. 

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