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Is the debt ceiling unconstitutional?

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Monday, July 24, 2023 07:49
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Friday, July 1, 2011 11:58 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


It's a way around the current kerfluffle, but I don't like it...talk about setting precedent! No wonder Obama's been silent about it.
Quote:

Amid fears the United States risks default if lawmakers don't raise the debt ceiling on time, some are suggesting President Obama could save the day by big-footing Congress.

How? By invoking the Constitution and directing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to keep borrowing even if it means going past the statutory borrowing limit.

Really? They say default -- and by extension, the debt limit -- violates the 14th Amendment.

The amendment 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."

Debt ceiling: Just do it
The idea first gained currency when legal scholar Garrett Epps and fiscal expert Bruce Bartlett asserted that the president could invoke the 14th Amendment.

Epps, writing in the Atlantic magazine, noted the amendment's stark language. "It's not hard to argue that the Constitution places both payments on the debt and payments owed to groups like Social Security recipients ... above the vagaries of Congressional politics."

He concluded: "If Congress won't pay them, then the executive must."

Bartlett, in a Fiscal Times column, noted that much of the public debt is held by foreign investors, meaning a default would global ramifications. And he cited warnings from top officials that it's a threat to national security.

Invoking the 14th Amendment to prevent default "is no less justified than using American military power to protect against an armed invasion without a congressional declaration of war," Bartlett argued.

Even Geithner, at a Politico breakfast last month, whipped out a copy of the Constitution and read the 14th Amendment aloud. "This is the important thing -'shall not be questioned,' " he said.

The president himself has been silent on the issue, dodging the question when it was asked at a press conference on Wednesday.

Not everyone is convinced that the 14th Amendment would be the best rabbit to pull out of the hat if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling in time.

For one thing, doing so could run counter to Congress' constitutional role.

Just because the Constitution directs the president to "safeguard the national debt" doesn't mean he can go "snatching the power of the purse" from Congress, wrote Michael Stern, who specializes in congressional legal issues, wrote in his blog PointofOrder.com.

And when it comes to national security, where the president has broad powers, "it is recognized that he must rely on Congress for funding," Stern added.

Then there's the issue of precedent.

"All administrations have acted and assumed the debt ceiling is a statute that has to be obeyed," said Jay Powell, a former Treasury undersecretary for finance under President George W. Bush who co-authored a report showing the negative fallout if Congress doesn't raise the ceiling.

As a practical matter, if the administration were to invoke the 14th Amendment, the markets could push the cost of borrowing higher as the move could spark a controversy, further dividing Capitol Hill.

Epps made clear in an email to CNNMoney that he's not recommending that the president treat the debt ceiling as something he can just disregard.

"I think ignoring the debt ceiling would and should be at most a last-minute thing, like a tourniquet on a wound, where the choice is between losing a leg and losing a life."

http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/30/news/economy/debt_ceiling_constitution
/index.htm?cnn=yes&hpt=hp_bn4


I'm on the side of those who think defaulting on our debt would be a major catastrophe with global implications...JUST MY OPINION...and it seems to me if it's not a political game (which would mean the Republicans would cave at the last minute, or blackmail further cuts out of the Dems to agree), it's a result of this new "no compromise" mentality on the right. I don't like what these neophite and Tea Party people voted into office are doing to our country, nor do I think anyone ELSE will when they suffer the consequences.

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Friday, July 1, 2011 12:12 PM

FIVVER


Seems to me that 'authorized by law' thing blows all of these 'experts' out of the water. Only congress can authorize by law the debt ceiling.

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Friday, July 1, 2011 2:49 PM

DREAMTROVE


The debt is unconstitutional, but more importantly, of course the ddebt ceiling is by extension, since it is authorizing a power to print money to a private corproation. The federal reserve is unconstitutional. Consitution was pretty clear on the printing of money and also the levying of taxes.

Realistically, raising or devaluing will both crush the value of the dollar, which will go the way of the ruble.


That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2017 4:16 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


heading to....20 TRILLION?





thornews

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Tuesday, January 10, 2017 4:56 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


THE $20 TRILLION US DEBT VISUALIZED


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Tuesday, January 10, 2017 4:19 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
THE $20 TRILLION US DEBT VISUALIZED

A better visualization would be to show the ratio of mortgages and car loans to national debt. You could bulldoze all the houses and vehicles in the USA with unpaid debts to banks into a mountain to make it easy to understand how much money was borrowed to build those houses and cars. Or you could look at a graph from the federal reserve:

http://myf.red/g/ckyC



The data for household debt is consumer loans and mortgages as a share of GDP is blue line.
Federal Debt is Total Public Debt as Percent of Gross Domestic Product GDP is red line.

Did you notice that the Federal Debt was once upon a time less than mortgages and consumer loads? The Federal Debt took off for the sky because Bush crashed the economy. His party denies any connection between the Debt and the Crash, but they are evading their poor record of governing. The GOP knows from experience that their evasiveness will work very well with people who can’t remember the past and don’t know how to look up the numbers to refresh their memories.

www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, January 10, 2017 5:42 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


lol yep... it's all the GOP. Dems had nothing to do with it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, January 11, 2017 8:27 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
THE $20 TRILLION US DEBT VISUALIZED

A better visualization would be to show the ratio of mortgages and car loans to national debt. You could bulldoze all the houses and vehicles in the USA with unpaid debts to banks into a mountain to make it easy to understand how much money was borrowed to build those houses and cars. Or you could look at a graph from the federal reserve:



Quote:


The data for household debt is consumer loans and mortgages as a share of GDP is blue line.
Federal Debt is Total Public Debt as Percent of Gross Domestic Product GDP is red line.

Did you notice that the Federal Debt was once upon a time less than mortgages and consumer loads? The Federal Debt took off for the sky because Bush crashed the economy. His party denies any connection between the Debt and the Crash, but they are evading their poor record of governing. The GOP knows from experience that their evasiveness will work very well with people who can’t remember the past and don’t know how to look up the numbers to refresh their memories.


www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp

Quote:




Your 2 graphs are telling, but your retro-realism delusions don't explain them in the real world.
Readers may notice the activity in those starts around October 2007, and then the toilet flushed following that - which also is where the trend of the Stock Market started.
Those not paying attention may wonder what significance October 2007 had, and may have not noticed the disaster in their retirement accounts.

The answer:
In November 2006 the Rock The Vote movement repealed gains made by reasonable voters, and the least knowledgeable, most ignorant electorate (born 1980-88) swept in a tide of extremist Libtards to run Congress. In January 2007 those Libtards were sworn in. They began working to destroy the economy through legislation, and their illustrious efforts debuted in the Federal Budget of FY 2008, which began on October 2007.

Alas, their efforts to destroy the economy were successful.

It was not until the Tea Party Revolution swept those clowns out of office in January 2011, thus finally curtailing the uncontrolled rise and placing a check on the meteoric runaway disaster of the Rock The Vote Economy, which some call the Great Recession.

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Friday, November 26, 2021 5:42 PM

JAYNEZTOWN


Failure to raise the debt ceiling needn’t cause a government collapse

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/nov/23/failure-to-raise-the-
debt-ceiling-neednt-cause-a-g
/

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Wednesday, December 1, 2021 7:30 PM

JAYNEZTOWN


5 things in Biden's $2 trillion spending plan that could get stripped out by the Senate, ranging from tax cuts to paid leave

https://news.yahoo.com/5-things-bidens-2-trillion-212824833.html

Adding in the American Families Plan, amounted to $4 trillion in infrastructure spending

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, was initially a $715 billion infrastructure package that included provisions related to federal-aid highway, transit, highway safety, motor carrier, research, hazardous materials, and rail programs of the Department of Transportation. The newer version included approximately $1.2 trillion in spending, with $550 billion being newly authorized spending on top of what Congress was planning to authorize regularly

The Build Back Better Act following negotiations, the price was lowered to approximately $2.2 trillion.

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Wednesday, December 1, 2021 10:15 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Don't worry...

All of the Democrat tyranny will remain in the bill. You just won't get any of the promised benefits to offset it.



--------------------------------------------------

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Thursday, December 15, 2022 10:49 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


French Social Media Erupts as Store Clerk on Avenue Montaigne Reports Zelenskyy’s Wife Having €40,000 Christmas Shopping Spree in Paris

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/12/14/french-social-med
ia-erupts-as-store-clerk-on-avenue-montaigne-reports-zelenskyys-wife-having-e40000-christmas-shopping-spree-in-paris
/

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Wednesday, May 17, 2023 5:54 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

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Monday, July 24, 2023 7:49 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


$57,200,000,000 Added to US Debt in Four Days As Billionaire David Rubenstein Issues Warning on America’s Economic Future


https://dailyhodl.com/2023/07/23/57200000000-added-to-us-debt-in-four-
days-as-billionaire-david-rubenstein-issues-warning-on-americas-economic-future
/

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