By the Numbers: Defaulting on … Everyone (Except China)

The Republicans' "Pay China First" debt prioritization bill (H.R. 692), scheduled to go to the House Floor for a vote tomorrow, would guarantee payments to some Treasury bondholders in the case of a default – while leaving the majority of the 80 to 100 million payments we make each month at risk.

A recent blog post from the Treasury Department on the Republican debt prioritization bill noted that "The only way to protect the full faith and credit of the United States and the American people from serious harm is for Congress to raise the debt limit... There are no easy outs and no escape hatches."

What payments might the U.S. Treasury be forced to default on under "Pay China First"?

• Pay and benefits for 1.4 million active duty troops and 827,000 troops in reserves
• Benefits to almost 4 million disabled veterans who served their country with honor and now need our help to live
• Payment for health care for nearly 5.9 million veterans cared for at VA hospitals and health centers
• Education assistance for nearly 1.1 million veterans
• Home loan support for nearly 630,000 million veterans
• Earned payments to American small businesses, who earned more than $91 billion dollars for goods and services rendered last year, and used those dollars to support more than 550,000 jobs
• Payments to nearly 1 million doctors and other health care practitioners who provided health care to Medicare beneficiaries
• Payments to schools for nutritious meals – 30.5 million children participated in the school lunch program
• Payments to almost 50,000 National Institutes of Health grantees, who are conducting life-saving medical research and providing an estimated 300,000 jobs

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