President Obama,
You need to be clear about what you will do when the debt ceiling is not raised. You need to state unequivocally that the United States will not default on it’s debt, that the interest payments will be made.
It must be clear that federal expenditures will immediately be cut 40%. You need to be clear what 40% that will be. There ARE Americans who are going to not get their checks and you need to let us know who that will be now.
You must be clear that even though the interest payments will be made, the interest rate America pays on its debt will go up and that this WILL mean that the debt of the United States will now be even greater than what everyone has been projecting up until now. This is because the amount of principle payments that are due in August exceed the amount of revenue that will be available to pay them. The only way those principle payments get paid on time is to borrow the money from someone else, but the borrowing limit has been met. When principle payments are late, the interest paid is going to go up.
You should explain that you have given up negotiating since the Republicans have brought nothing to the table and you now insist that the debt limit bill be a clean bill. You should ask Americans who are upset with the consequences that you have laid out to contact their congressman and insist on a clean bill to raise the debt limit.
After making these consequences clear to the American people, you need to go in to the debt limit negotiations and explain that you are done negotiating. The Republicans have demonstrated beyond all reason that they have no idea what it means to negotiate and compromise and since no deal can be reached, the bill must come through clean.
Thank-you for your attention to this matter.
Rich Beckman
A constituent.