Bipartisan anxiety about U.S. debt default

WASHINGTON -- The United States has never defaulted on its debt and Democrats and Republicans say they don't want it to happen now. But with partisan acrimony running at fever pitch, and Democrats and Republicans so far apart on how to tame the deficit, the unthinkable is suddenly being pondered.

The government now borrows about 42 cents of every dollar it spends. Imagine that one day soon, the borrowing slams up against the current debt limit ceiling of $14.3 trillion and Congress fails to raise it. The damage would ripple across the entire economy, eventually affecting nearly every American, and rocking global markets in the process.

A default would come if the government failed to fulfill a financial obligation, including repaying a loan or interest on that loan. The government borrows mostly by selling bonds to individuals and governments, with a promise to pay back the amount of the bond in a certain time period and agreeing to pay regular interest on that bond in the meantime.

Among the first directly affected would likely be money-market funds holding government securities, banks that buy bonds directly from the Federal Reserve and resell them to consumers, including pension and mutual funds; and the foreign investor community, which holds nearly half of all Treasury securities.

If the United States starts missing interest or principal payments, borrowers would demand higher and higher rates on new bonds, as they did with Greece, Portugal and other heavily indebted nations. At some point, the government would have to slash spending in other areas to make room for any further sales of Treasury bills and bonds. That could squeeze payments to federal contractors, and eventually even affect Social Security and other government benefit payments, as well as federal workers' paychecks.

A default would likely trigger another financial panic like the one in 2008 and plunge an economy still reeling from high joblessness and a battered housing market back into recession. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke calls failure to raise the debt limit "a recovery-ending event." U.S. stock markets would likely tank -- devastating roughly half of U.S. households that own stocks, either individually or through 401(k) type retirement programs.

Eventually, the cost of most credit would rise -- from business and consumer loans to home mortgages, auto financing and credit cards.

If there is a debt limit deadlock, the government by this summer could find itself legally unable to borrow more money to pay its bills, beginning with interest on its debt and gradually extending to day-to-day federal operations.