Focus on the Debt | Cato Institute

Focus on the Debt | Cato Institute: "interest on Treasury debt accounts for only 6.5 percent of federal spending. But paying interest on bonds — not discretionary spending — is a binding legal obligation. Failure to extend the debt ceiling on some specific date would neither require nor permit the Treasury to “default” on obligations to creditors — including the Federal Reserve, which holds twice as much U.S. debt as China does. But getting past October 17 with a debt ceiling unraised would require cutting other spending by some $12.3 billion per week while the impasse lasted."