Time To End The Debt Ceiling Game. Time For Obama To Invoke The 14th Amendment
No local, state or federal law can violate the U.S. Constitution. Neither can a policy of Congress. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that this country’s public debt “shall not be questioned.” Obviously, because of disagreements between congress and the president over the federal budget, the country’s public debt IS being questioned. So…
So this coming Thursday or Friday, if Plan B C, or D fails to raise the debt ceiling, to prevent a default that would most certainly call the value of our public debt into question, the president should evoke the 14th Amendment and simply instruct the Secretary of the Treasury to keep borrowing and keep on paying the government’s bills.
What will happen then? And more important, what won’t happen then?
The Tea Party reps in congress will immediately holler foul and challenge the president’s action in court, a place where even White House lawyers, according to media reports. “are not persuaded” that this presidential action will ultimately be upheld. But so what.
It will take time, days certainly and probably weeks if enough lawyering is applied, to get this move declared unconstitutional, after which it will take more time for the president to comply. And during this time the debt ceiling hammer that Tea Partiers are now trying to use to force their fiscal and economic agenda on the country will fade from view because whatever a court says, a determined president can diddle with compliance for a very, very long time.
Now the really good part. The debate over federal spending and taxing will become what it should always have been — a debate that takes place within the context of fashioning an annual federal budget.
I’m a progressive. I think the case people such as myself can make in this realm will force Washington to fashion a budget that relies far more heavily on taxing the well-to-do, and far less on squeezing already badly squeezed poor and middle class Americans. I also believe that the Tea Party has very badly overplayed its hand, and can no longer con voters into believing that they only want to remake government in sane and prudent ways.
That’s what I believe. That’s why I’m looking forward to a public debate on the budget after the debt ceiling terror has been flushed.
Is the Tea Party? You betcha. How could it be otherwise? This party’s leaders, after all, are gutsy guys and mama grizzlies with titanium spines.
More from (and about) this writer at http://cootavengers.com/
12 Responses to “Time To End The Debt Ceiling Game. Time For Obama To Invoke The 14th Amendment”
Yes, many liberals may want a gimmick like this (law, propriety, all that stuff the liberals ignore because We Want!), but we adults want sanity.
(The same goes for debased class warfare budgetary gimmicks. We adults want a real budget.)
First: The “law” is what the strongest person present dictates is the law. Law is merely an extension of power, and barbarism, so don’t put on airs.
Second: “Propriety” is impossible to identify since so much of what you earn depends on living in a country that doesn’t suck. Paying taxes is like paying rent – you can just move to a house with lower rent and worse standards if you think you can manage on your own.
Third: One instant you whine about the importance of law and the second you call the 14th amendment (intended to stop terrorists like the House republicans) a “gimmick”.
“The same goes for debased class warfare budgetary gimmicks. We adults want a real budget”
Well, a majority of people want tax increases on the rich. So real adults are in the minority, apparently.
Yes, real and competent adults these days are in the minority.
It’s exploited by those who can buy votes — quantity over quality.
I’m not wasting time with any misinterpretation of (incompetence about?) what I have written earlier or what Congress is like, e.g..
For those in need of remedial education [scowl]:
The text and from its context the obvious meaning is self-explanatory. (Game-playing about interpretation of it is BS.)
This has nothing to do with any limits on debt set by Congress.
This has nothing to do with paying debts no matter what (including in defiance of federal law limiting it), nothing to do with issuing it, but rather and everything to do with legitimizing any or all federal debt that has been issued already (or will be in the future, providing of course it’s legal).
[sigh]
Since there is still more than enough income to service the debt and remain under the debt ceiling I’m wondering if this is a moot point.
Good Idea. Drag the issue through the courts. Wonder what the conservatives, (of which virtually all call themselves Constitution purist’s), that serve on the Supreme Court Bench, are going to say about the 14th amendment.?
E. Ellis: Yes. The solution isn’t for Obama to defy federal law (which is in fact impeachable as well as stupid in this case), obviously, but instead to continue to pay debt principal and interest by shifting revenue for this purpose from elsewhere in the federal budget. (It could also be done by raising taxes, but that’s not possible this quickly and rightly isn’t easy, either.)
(As I’ve also said elsewhere about revenue shifting, this is the problem with entitlements and their deficits, which exists without the complication of the “trust fund” bonds that have no value but are simply additional claims on federal revenue when they are redeemed.)
The only complication is if the revenue shifts for continued debt payments result in not paying for other federal functions and for programs. There’s no problem at all if appropriations aren’t now “mandatory,” and the only legal contention is if the “mandatory” appropriations have equal footing with the debt payments. They likely are equal or may actually have higher priority over debt.
“I also believe that the Tea Party has very badly overplayed its hand, and can no longer con voters into believing that they only want to remake government in sane and prudent ways.”
Let’s hope so, just how much BS does it take before voters figure out when they’re being had? And DLS? Thanks for flashing your “adult” creds. It was truly amusing.
No doubt, to some (sadly), Spence.
Obama has written enough blank checks.
He wants another to last beyond 2012 (the elections).