Raise the Debt Ceiling. Obama Don’t Need No Steenking Congress!
According to some senators and constitutional scholars, the entire concept of a national “debt limit” is unconstitutional. Senator Chris Coons (D—Delaware) said:
“This is an issue that's been raised in some private debate between senators as to whether in fact we can default, or whether that provision of the Constitution can be held up as preventing default.”
There’s disagreement over the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states:
“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”
According to legal scholar Garrett Epps:
“This provision makes clear that both the monies our nation owes to bondholders, and the sums promised in legislation to those receiving pensions set by law from the federal government, must be paid regardless of the political whims of the current congressional majority.”
Epps said that if Congress refuses to act, Obama could — and should — instruct the Treasury Department to issue “binding debt instruments on the world market sufficient to cover all the current obligations of the United States government, even in default of Congressional action to meet those obligations.”
Works for me.
And seconding the motion, Bill Clinton is telling the Democrats “Grow a Pair!!!”
Think they will?
Labels: Bill Clinton debt limit, Chris Coons, debt ceiling, debt limit unconstitutional, Garrett Epps debt limit
posted by Tom Harper @ 11:30 AM
12 Comments:
I am not even sure why there is a debt ceiling in the first place. It hasn't stopped the debt from growing in the past and it won't now! In fact, if there was a republican in the White House now, the debt limit would have already been raised...maybe a couple of times already.
Jerry is right. They would have raise it for covering whatever other wars we would have gotten in, or for increasing military costs, etc.
Commander cuckoo bananas raised it like three times if I remember correctly. Now they are all bent because a dem wants it raised. Shumer has already been out there saying this is all in an effort to score political points. I'm shocked I tell you, SHOCKED it has taken some of them this long to figure that out.
Jess is correct. They do it, they think it's o.k. The other guys do it, they think it's wrong. This seems true for both parties, but yes, I get great amusement out of the GOP getting on the other party's case after they themselves have also raised the debt limit just as much as the Dems have.
The GOP has already done a good job helping the public forget that Obama inherited a huge mess... now they have convinced a good number of Americans that the recession is Obama's fault.
Now, just watch, soon they will have a significant portion of the public comvinced that the debt ceiling has never been raised under a Republican president, that it is only a thing the Dems do.
Sometimes it really makes me think we would be better off with something like a coalition government, or at least with three or four strong political parties...
Snave, I like your idea about a coalition government. The duopoly we now have is systematically and systemically corrupt. Both parties, or more precisely, both wings of the ruling "corporatist party", govern in favor of the elite, the international banking syndicate, and multinational corporate interests.
Until the preponderance of Americans wake up to this unfortunate fact, the situation will continue to deteriorate not only economically, but culturally and politically as well.
If we keep on raising the ceiling, how is the fan supposed to cool us off? Gonna be over 90° today, dammit.
Jerry: I'm not sure why, either. But I'm glad to find out that the whole concept of a "debt ceiling" is unconstitutional. For some odd reason, this hasn't been mentioned by any of the rightwing zealots who pretend to worship the Constitution.
Snave: But wars and corporate bailouts are important. The infrastructure, the safety net -- not so much.
Jess: Dumbya always got whatever he wanted. Another corporate handout, another war -- "Yes Sir! How High Sir?!?"
I'm glad Schumer came out and said what we already know: that Republicans are willing to sabotage the economy, the whole country, just to make Obama a one-term president.
Snave: The GOP is brilliant at brainwashing millions of gullible voters. Too bad that's the only talent they have.
Jefferson's Guardian: You're right, both parties are just different wings of the Corporatist Party. Big Business is totally in control, with virtually all politicians being just figureheads.
As you said at your blog, this has happened gradually, incrementally, sloooowly over the last few decades. The changes have been too slow for most people to notice, but it's happened just the same.
Randal: Maybe Republicans will get their fingers caught in the fan while they're trying to prevent the ceiling from being raised.
Exactly right. "Shall not be questioned" means Congress and the president are not to allow the country to get into a situation where creditors have to worry about default. It means if the U.S. incurs a debt, the U.S. pays the debt.
This shouldn't be hard for Republicans to understand, being the party of the big and growing foreclosure industry. I guess Republicans also want to be the party that earns America a reputation not just as the world's biggest debtor nation, but also as the world's biggest deadbeat. nation.
Jerry Critter wrote: "I am not even sure why there is a debt ceiling in the first place. It hasn't stopped the debt from growing in the past. . ."
It's like a mark on the wall a parent makes to show how much a child has grown. It's just a mark, with no significance in law based on the Constitution.
In fact, the debt ceiling is raised whenever Congress and the president authorize and spend more than whatever the previous mark was.
SW: Republicans would love to have the U.S. become the world's biggest debtor nation and the biggest deadbeat nation -- as long as they can point the finger and say "it's all Obama's fault!"
The Constitutional question is an interesting one. The 14th Amendment has the language it does precisely because of the "conservatives" of that era. I think maybe even this SCOTUS might have to agree.
Commander cuckoo bananas raised it like three times if I remember correctly.
Hmm three time in 8 years compare to 3 times in two?
Oh yeah that's the same thing.
"Until the preponderance of Americans wake up to this unfortunate fact, the situation will continue to deteriorate"
They did wake up, those racist Tea Baggers.
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