# How will the debt ceiling resolution affect my situation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 21, 2023, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351 "2023-05-21T05:04:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/1 "2023-05-21T05:04:04Z")
If Biden is forced to capitulate to GOP demands, how will those demands affect my situation? I am on Social Security disability, Medicare, and EBT. My mother is on the first two. I’m on disability due to a mental health condition, and Mom is on it because of physical health. Are we gonna be shit outta luck? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/2 "2023-05-21T11:29:16Z")
I don’t think there are any cuts to social security and medicare in the proposed GOP bill. I believe there are cuts to veterans benefits, work requirements for welfare and food stamps, cuts to the IRS (why? The IRS helps reduce the deficit. Oh, rich people, right), and a roll back of Biden’s green initiatives. You’re probably exempt from the work requirements for EBT due to disability, but I don’t know for sure. ---
**Author:** ![JaneDoe42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/janedoe42/32/14104_2.png) [@JaneDoe42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JaneDoe42)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/3 "2023-05-21T17:39:57Z")
I was working for the food stamp office the last time this happened. The state issued the next month’s allotment just before the shutdown was due to happen so be sure to check your balance and any correspondence from so you can budget accordingly. I didn’t hear of anyone having issues getting their medication or doctor visits, I assume the entities involved knew that they would be paid when the budget was passed. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/4 "2023-05-21T18:13:31Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > I don’t think there are any cuts to social security and medicare in the proposed GOP bill. It is worth noting though that IF the US defaults on its debt the federal government will stop writing checks. That would include SS benefits (among many other things including Medicare and EBT). Presumably those payments would resume once it all got sorted out but not sure if they would make up for missed payments or just start again. I am not sure how that impacts checks individual states write but, if those benefits are backed up by the federal government then perhaps those stop too (I am not sure how that works). If possible, it is probably worth it to try to save some money in case the House decides to blow it all up. I know that may not be possible… ---
**Author:** ![JaneDoe42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/janedoe42/32/14104_2.png) [@JaneDoe42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JaneDoe42)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/5 "2023-05-21T21:46:51Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > It is worth noting though that IF the US defaults on its debt the federal government will stop writing checks. Does this include cutting paychecks to the Senate and their staff? Perhaps ex-presidents’ retirement payments and security details? If the OP is on the program I think he is…he’s not allowed to save money. He can’t have more than some stupid low amount, 2 grand, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/6 "2023-05-21T21:50:46Z")
I am not sure but since a bill was very recently proposed in congress to stop their paychecks if the US defaults I am guessing congress still gets paid…somehow (else, why propose that bill?). Note: That bill has not been passed and I doubt it will. There are a few things congress expects us all to abide by but they exempt themselves from (e.g. insider trading). Also, I think there are some things that still get paid no matter what (like the military) and Secret Service and such. > **[New House bill would block pay for members of Congress if the U.S. defaults](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/new-bill-block-pay-congress-us-hits-debt-ceiling-rcna84973)** > > The bipartisan legislation by Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., comes amid growing fears about a debt ceiling breach ahead of a June 1 deadline. ---
**Author:** ![JaneDoe42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/janedoe42/32/14104_2.png) [@JaneDoe42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JaneDoe42)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/7 "2023-05-21T22:16:51Z")
Why am I not surprised? To the OP, I texted my friend who works in the food stamp office. I will let you know when I get an answer about what is happening here. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/8 "2023-05-21T22:28:56Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > It is worth noting though that IF the US defaults on its debt the federal government will stop writing checks. I’m not really sure what you mean by this. At some point fairly soon, the U.S. will not be able to meet _all_ of its obligations without an increase in the debt ceiling. It could fail to repay principal or interest on some or all debt (a default); it could stop writing checks for benefits or whatever else. It’s not clear what the plan is, but it’s not a binary situation where it must suddenly stop paying out any money at all. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/9 "2023-05-21T22:35:29Z")
As I noted above, some things still get paid. The government will not stop paying the military or security services (like Secret Service or Capitol Police). Hospitals will keep running. I forget how to find a list but there is a list of “critical infrastructure” that keeps getting paid. If you are not on that list then yeah…no more checks. Social Security is one such not on that list (and probably the biggest). Medicare too. This has some detail (the article below says some military payments stop but I can’t believe the whole military is not paid and they can’t buy gas and so on…devil is in the details): > **[If the U.S. defaults, will it miss Medicare payments? What about Social...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/18/debt-ceiling-default-deadline-payments/)** > > A breach of the debt limit would be uncharted territory for the United States ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/10 "2023-05-21T23:22:46Z")
I guess there is an element of truth in it being somewhat binary - nobody is really sure if the Treasury has the authority to prioritize one payment over another. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/11 "2023-05-21T23:27:56Z")
My sense is (and to be clear…this is only my guess which I cannot really backup…so, big grain of salt) that a default does not mean the government has no money. It still has money and can still write checks. It just cannot write all the checks. Therefore it has to prioritize and many things get left out. Also, I think it means the government stops making interest payments on the debt. That means borrowing money in the future becomes much more expensive. A bad result. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2023, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/12 "2023-05-21T23:36:31Z")
The latter, the word “default” specifically means that it misses an interest payment or principal repayment on debt. Failing to make benefit payments is not a default. One might think that benefit recipients should be a higher priority than “rich bondholders”, but the reality is that the consequences of default could be bad. On the third hand, nobody really believes that the U.S. would _really_ default even if they were technically in default, so predictions that the economy would lose millions of jobs and the stock market would drop 50% if a debt repayment were delayed by a week or two are probably a bit extreme. On the fourth hand, nobody wants to “normalize” this ridiculous behavior by the Republicans by imagining that the markets can just shrug off an occasional failure to meet obligations on time. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2023, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/13 "2023-05-22T01:31:11Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I forget how to find a list but there is a list of “critical infrastructure” that keeps getting paid. If you are not on that list then yeah…no more checks. Social Security is one such not on that list (and probably the biggest). Medicare too. I think you may be conflating a government shutdown with a debt ceiling crisis. Government shutdowns have occurred several times when Congress has failed to pass a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. In that circumstance, all non-appropriated spending stops until Congress can pass a budget. Social Security and Medicare continue because they are not appropriated – those are entitlement programs. Certain federal workers identified as “critical” are required to continue to do their jobs without pay while the remainder are furloughed. Hitting the debt ceiling is different (and I agree with @Riemann that it’s hyperbole to call such a situation a “default”.) The federal government will no longer have enough money coming in to pay all the bills that are coming due. But as the article you cite notes, there’s no plan for how to prioritize federal spending in this scenario. The Treasury is set up to send out checks as bills come due, regardless of what those checks are for. There’s no process in place to say that one category of spending should be paid before another, and the payment processing apparatus at Treasury may not even be capable of such discrimination. So there’s no way to guarantee that Social Security checks go out before payments to defense contractors. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2023, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/14 "2023-05-22T01:50:40Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > I think you may be conflating a government shutdown with a debt ceiling crisis. I think you are right about that. I did conflate the two. > [@flurb](#): > > The federal government will no longer have enough money coming in to pay all the bills that are coming due. Does this mean the government cannot issue new debt? If they cannot issue new debt does that mean they cannot pay any bills? Or that they still have some money, just not enough to pay everything they are supposed to pay (put another way, can they pay some bills)? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2023, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/15 "2023-05-22T01:52:01Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Does this mean the government cannot issue new debt? If the debt ceiling is not raised, presumably they can only roll over existing debt - issue new debt as existing debt is repaid. So without default, the amount of money available for expenditure is the revenue that comes in minus interest payments on existing debt. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2023, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/16 "2023-05-22T02:07:40Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Does this mean the government cannot issue new debt? > > If they cannot issue new debt does that mean they cannot pay any bills? Or that they still have some money, just not enough to pay everything they are supposed to pay (put another way, can they pay some bills)? The debt “ceiling” is precisely that – a statutory ceiling on how much debt the Treasury may have outstanding at a given time. Part of the point is to give Treasury flexibility to retire and reissue debt so as to take advantage of favorable bond markets. I see on preview @Riemann just beat me with this point. On your second question, even after hitting the debt ceiling Treasury will continue to take in hundreds of billions of dollars a month in taxes and other revenue. So yes, they can pay some bills. But the Treasury processes 80 million payments each month. In past debt ceiling crises, Treasury Secretaries have stated that they have no legal or technical ability to prioritize those payments. So most likely what you would have is that the spigot would continually start and stop – payments would stop when Treasury runs out of money, then start again when a little revenue had built up, then stop again when that’s depleted, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2023, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/17 "2023-05-22T02:12:37Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > …payments would stop when Treasury runs out of money, then start again when a little revenue had built up, then stop again when that’s depleted, etc. So, to the OP’s question, they may well be affected. How is almost impossible to say but they should expect some hard times if a default happens and until the government sorts it out. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2023, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/18 "2023-05-22T02:27:46Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > [@RitterSport](#): > > > > I don’t think there are any cuts to social security and medicare in the proposed GOP bill. ⁢ > > It is worth noting though that IF the US defaults on its debt the federal government will stop writing checks. That would include SS benefits (among many other things including Medicare and EBT). This Forbes article says they believe the June payments would likely still go out, but they are less sure about July, if the debt ceiling isn’t raised by then. > **[Misery All Around: Social Security And The Debt Ceiling](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/retirement/debt-ceiling-impact-social-security/)** > > It’s never a good thing when politicians use the full faith and credit of the United States as a bargaining chip. But for the one in five Americans who receive a monthly check from Social Security, the current political standoff in our nation’s... ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2023, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/19 "2023-05-22T04:05:17Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I am not sure but since a bill was very recently proposed in congress to stop their paychecks if the US defaults I am guessing congress still gets paid…somehow (else, why propose that bill?). Note: That bill has not been passed and I doubt it will. The 27th Amendment takes precedence here. “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.” ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2023, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351/20 "2023-05-22T10:16:11Z")
The OPs question was, what would happen if Biden caved to the Republican demands. All this talk of default is off topic. So, let’s pretend that the Republican proposal is passed as is. How does that affect the OPs situation? ETA: To be clear, a default could cause temporary disruption to payments to the OP, but what permanent changes would there be if Biden accepts the Republican proposal as is? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-the-debt-ceiling-resolution-affect-my-situation/984351.md?page=2)