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REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS
Is the debt ceiling unconstitutional?
Friday, July 1, 2011 11:58 AM
NIKI2
Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...
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."
Friday, July 1, 2011 12:12 PM
FIVVER
Friday, July 1, 2011 2:49 PM
DREAMTROVE
Tuesday, January 10, 2017 4:16 AM
JAYNEZTOWN
Tuesday, January 10, 2017 4:56 AM
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/two
Quote:Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN: THE $20 TRILLION US DEBT VISUALIZED
Tuesday, January 10, 2017 5:42 PM
6IXSTRINGJACK
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.
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