Obama: hopeful won't have to prioritize payments in debt crisis

WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he remains very hopeful that Congress will not put his administration in the position of having to consider prioritizing debt payments in the event of a federal debt default.

Obama told a news conference that the United States has a lot of debt obligations beyond paying its Treasury bond holders and that the government's failure to pay other bills would also hurt U.S. creditworthiness.