Ezra Klein has an interesting column in The Washington Post about the implications of the debt ceiling not being raised And something in this column really caught my eye.
Imagine we hit the debt ceiling Feb. 15. The BPC’s analysis suggests that federal spending over the next month will be about $450 billion. Federal revenues will be nearer to $277 billion. That means that the government will have to default on about 40 percent of its obligations.
The choices it will face quickly become stark. It can cover interest on the debt, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense spending, education, food stamps and other low-income transfers, and a handful of other programs, but doing all that will mean defaulting on everything — really, everything — else. The FBI will shut down. The people responsible for tracking down loose nukes will lose their jobs. The prisons won’t operate. The biomedical researchers won’t be funded. The court system will close its doors. The tax refunds won’t go out. The Federal Aviation Administration will go offline. The parks will close. Food safety inspections will cease.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/this-is-what-would-happen-if-we-breach-the-debt-ceiling/?hpid=z4
(bold emphasis is mine, not Klein's)
So it occurred to me, imagine how the Tea Party Members would feel about the federal government using their money (money from taxes overpaid) to pay the bills of the Federal Government. And I can't imagine that they would be very happy with this scenario.
So if we are faced with the Tea Party once again threatening to take us into default by not raising the debt ceiling, we should make it clear to them that if this occurs, they will not receive a single dollar of the income tax refunds to which they are entitled until Congress increases the debt ceiling.
It would certainly strengthen the Democratic Party's hand for the President to announce that if the debt limit is not increased, that he will instruct the federal government not to pay any tax refunds until after all of the other bills are paid. And that unfortunately this would mean that no one would be paid their income tax refunds until after the debt ceiling was increased. He could then add that if the public was unhappy with that, they should call their member of congress and urge him or her to vote to increase the debt limit
And how much do you want to bet that if this happens, the public outcry will be so great (even among conservatives) that Congress will immediately increase the debt limit, regardless of whether there is an agreement on spending cuts.