Friday, September 20, 2013

Debunking the lie not raising the debt ceiling will cause the US to default on debt

Here is the big lie from the Liar-in-Chief:

Via The Hill:
President Obama said Republicans in Congress were threatening to make the United States into “a deadbeat” and a “banana republic” with their maneuvers to tie the federal budget and the debt ceiling to defunding ObamaCare.
Here is the 2013 federal budget and revenue for the fiscal year that ends October 1, 2013.

Via Wikipedia:

Total revenues and spending

The Obama administration's February 2012 budget request contained $2.902 trillion in receipts and $3.803 trillion in outlays, for a deficit of $901 billion.[38] The budget projects a reduction in the deficit to $575 billion by 2018 before rising to $704 billion by 2022.[39]
Total receipts (in billions of dollars)::
Item Requested[38]
Individual income tax 1,359
Social Security and other payroll tax 959
Corporate income tax 348
Excise tax 88
Customs duties 33
Estate and gift taxes 13
Deposits of earnings and Federal Reserve System 80
Other miscellaneous receipts 21
Total 2902
Total outlays by agency (in billions of dollars):
Agency Discretionary Mandatory Total
Department of Defense including Overseas Contingency Operations 666.2 6.7 672.9
Department of Health and Human Services including Medicare and Medicaid 80.6 860.3 940.9
Department of Education 67.7 4.2 71.9
Department of Veterans Affairs 60.4 79.4 139.7
Department of Housing and Urban Development 41.1 5.2 46.3
Department of State and Other International Programs 56.1 3.4 59.5
Department of Homeland Security 54.9 0.5 55.4
Department of Energy 35.6 –0.6 35.0
Department of Justice 23.9 12.7 36.5
Department of Agriculture 26.8 127.7 154.5
National Aeronautics and Space Administration 17.8 –0.02 17.8
National Intelligence Program 52.6 0 52.6
Department of Transportation 24.0 74.5 98.5
Department of the Treasury 14.1 96.2 110.3
Department of the Interior 12.3 1.2 13.5
Department of Labor 13.2 88.4 101.7
Social Security Administration 11.7 871.0 882.7
Department of Commerce 9.5 –0.5 9.0
Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works 8.2 –0.007 8.2
Environmental Protection Agency 9.2 –0.2 8.9
National Science Foundation 7.4 0.2 7.5
Small Business Administration 1.4 –0.006 1.4
Corporation for National and Community Service 1.1 0.007 1.1
Net interest 246 0 246
Disaster costs 2 0 2
Other spending 34.0- 61.7 29.5
Total 1,510 2,293 3,803
Revenue in the 2013 budget is $2.9 trillion and spending is $3.8 trillion. That means we borrow $900 billion. That's where the debt ceiling comes into play. We can see mandatory spending is $2.3 trillion. Add back in the rest of the military spending, except $140 billlion for new procurement, the payment of $246 billion on the national debt interest and we have a grand total of 3.07 trillion in spending.  Since revenue was 2.902 trillion, we only have to come up with $160 million. The actual budget was different than the on passed by Congress and signed by Obama. Due to the sequestration and increased tax revenue, the CBO estimates the actual deficit at $759 billion. That is a savings of $161 billion. This covers the $160 billion gap. Without raising the debt ceiling, we have paid all mandatory federal spending, paid all the defense budget, except for delaying new procurement, and paid the interest on the national debt. Now tell me how not raising the debt ceiling will cause the US to default on it's debts?

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