[quote=no_such_reality]
Either we mint a trillion dollar coin or we default on our debt (or do we?) I don’t think we do, all they have to do is appropriate a modest sum to paying the interest.
[/quote]
The government collects about 2.5+ trillion dollars in revenue each year from various sources. The interest on the debt is only about 500 billion. We aren’t going to default on the debt. We have plenty of money to make the interest payments on debt already incurred. We might default on some other obligation like sending out medicare checks on a timely basis or cutting social security checks by some percentage but the last thing the treasury is going to do is default on an interest payment for a bond.