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July 1 | Fri Jul 1, 2011 12:33pm EDT

July 1 (Reuters) - A Washington think-tank has produced the first detailed study of what a U.S. default would look like by the numbers.

The Bipartisan Policy Center looked at projected cash inflows, and payment obligations for the U.S. Treasury for each day from Aug. 3 until Aug. 31.

The Treasury says that if the government's $14.3 trillion borrowing authority is not raised by Aug. 2, it will have run out of money to fully meet its financial obligations and the United States will enter default on Aug. 3.

Below are the center's key projections.

-- Inflows between Aug. 3 and Aug. 31 would be $172 billion, bills due will be $306 billion, leaving a shortfall of $134 billion.

-- Averaged out through August, 44 percent of bills and obligations could not be paid.

-- $500 billion of maturing debt must be paid in August. New securities will need to be auctioned off to raise enough cash to pay the maturing debt. It is unclear if enough new debt could be sold if the United States is in default.

-- The Treasury makes 80 million payments per month, or about 3 million a day. Government computer software is programmed to pay obligations as they fall due. How these would be overridden to prioritize debt payments is unclear.

-- On Aug. 3, the day of default, inflows will be $12 billion, but obligations will be $32 billion -- including $23 billion in Social Security payments.

-- On Aug. 15 there will be $41 billion of committed spending -- including $29 billion in debt interest payments. But there will be just $22 billion in revenues.

-- If Treasury tries to prioritize payments, in whatever order, it would be impossible to avoid deep cuts to popular programs and government departments.

With $172 billion of revenue between Aug. 3 and Aug. 31, Treasury could fully fund Social Security payments, Medicare and Medicaid, interest on the debt, defense vendor payments and unemployment insurance.

But that would leave entire government departments -- such as Labor, Commerce, Energy and Justice -- unfunded, and many others unpaid, like active-duty troops and the federal workforce. (Reporting by Tim Reid, Editing by Xavier Briand)