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Social Security and Medicare recipients are begging Congress to reach a deal on the debt ceiling without cutting entitlements. They fear a federal government default could stop the checks from flowing. But Governor Rick Scott says: no deal, no problem. As Whitney Ray tells us, Scott says a federal government default won’t hurt the state government.

Saturday is the 46th anniversary of Medicare and next month Social Security will be one year older. To celebrate, a group of seniors gathered outside of Florida Congressman Steve Southerland’s office with a birthday cake and a message.

“Cut the cake, not Medicare and Social Security,” said Barbara DeVane, the Secretary of the Florida Alliance of Retired Americans.

Southerland is just one of dozens of tea party Republicans calling on deep cuts to spending before they’ll agree to raise the country’s debt ceiling. These seniors fear the cuts will leave them with not enough money to survive.

“Medicare is what our retirement leads to. Ultimately we’re going to have to have Medicare to supplement those policies that were given to us,” said Dale Landry, with the Florida Conference of the NAACP.

If a deal isn’t reached by next Tuesday Congress wouldn’t have near enough money to meet all its financial obligations… and a federal government shutdown could ensue.

And as the protest continues outside of Congressman Southerland’s office, across the city in the state Capitol Governor Rick Scott is preparing for… well, nothing.

24 billion of Florida’s 70 billion dollar budget comes from Washington, yet Scott says there will be no immediate impact if Tuesday passes without a debt deal.

“This is a spending problem and there’s a day reckoning so I hope they’ll figure out how to reduce their spending, but I’m confident in our state that we’re going to do well,” said Scott.

But who may suffer the most are federal government employees, college professors who receive federal research grants, and city programs fully funded with federal money. If a deal isn’t reached the Federal government would only have enough money to pay the interest on its debt, Social Security, Unemployment, Medicaid and Medicare.