There was a senator on NPR (missed his name, darn it) who made the strong point that there is a law requiring SS checks and payments to be made even in a government shut down. He referenced that law because they had introduced a bill that would force military pay to be made even in a shut down, and the Dims had refused to vote on that law...threatened to filibuster if it came to the floor. Weirdly enough, I haven't seen that story hit our MSM??? How can that be, that our supposedly non-biased media would ignore the Democrats deliberately refusing to pass a law that guarantees military pay??? Not to mention the massive silence about the law that guarantees SS checks. 
Big Brother certainly has the MSM in his back pocket.
Unfortunately, the bolded statement is correct.....just to an extent......the law states that SS checks must be paid, however it does not stipulate WHEN they must be paid.
The executive branch (through the treasury dept.) has the legal authority to prioritize payments in the event of a shutdown. IOW, they can state what gets paid and what does not......on a purely arbitrary basis. They can delay SS payments, but just like paychecks to unionized government employees, eventually the payments must be made.
Obama would never do it, but in the event the debt ceiling increase is not authorized by congress, slashing the budgets of the EPA, HUD, HHS, DoA, and DoE would more than cover the difference........shut them all down, and nobody (but their employees) would know the difference.........which is exactly why he WON'T do it that way.......
doc
