Obama: No More Debt Ceiling (Assumes Dictatorial Powers)

Speaking Jan. 1 at the White House at 11:20 p.m., less than an hour after the House voted 257 to 167 to approve new tax hikes, President Barack Obama announced that he will assert the authority to raise the debt ceiling for spending approved by Congress.

“One last point I want to make,” said the president flanked by Vice-President Joseph R. Biden Jr., whose Capitol Hill summitry closed the deal on a “fiscal cliff” compromise. “I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills, they have already racked up through the laws they have passed.

This is a critical pivot for the president, who previously dismissed the idea floated among liberals that Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, one of the three amendments passed at the end of the Civil War, authorizes the executive to borrow the funds to make good federal debt payments.

It reads: 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…

This is the second time the administration has wielded the debt ceiling as a hammer against the Republicans in Congress.

As official Washington bugged out of town for Christmas, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy F. Geithner sent a Dec. 23 letter, late in the afternoon, to all members of Congress alerting them that the current statutory debt ceiling of $16.394 trillion would be reached Dec. 31.

Although Geithner conceded in the text of the letter that the Treasury could keep the government running past the end of the year, the surprise letter signaled a new level of brinksmanship.

Obama framed his assumption of the authority to borrow funds, regardless of a statutory debt ceiling, in the context of the upcoming fight to raise it—a fight Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R.-S.C.) called “Round 2” becuase the senator said Republicans had been beaten in the negotiations to avoid the “fiscal cliff” or “Round 1.”

The president was direct. Either Congress raises the debt ceiling or he will go ahead and borrow the money to pay the bills on his own in order to avoid damage to the U.S. and world economies.

“Let me repeat, you can’t not pay bills that we have already incurred,” he said.

“In Congress refuses to the United States government the ability to pay these bills on-time, the consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic—far worse than the impact of a fiscal cliff,” he said.

“People will remember back in 2011, the last time this course of action was threatened, our entire recovery was put at risk,” he said.

Section 4. 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. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Clearly, no rational reading of section 4 of the 14th amendment, especially as amplified by section 5, could conceivably lead to the conclusion that the president United States has gained any authority whatsoever over the payment of the country's debts which is hosted elsewhere in the Constitution in the Congress. The United States, the country operating under the Articles of Confederation, and the Continental Congress all have a well-documented history of not paying, or paying late, their debts. One need only consider the travail of the patriots at Valley Forge to acknowledge this historical fact. Moreover, section 5 explicitly designates Congress, not the President, as the governmental agency to have the power to enforce the provisions of the article which, of course, includes section 4.

This grant of power to Congress implies an absence of power in the executive, or the judiciary, the bureaucracy, or the states. There is no plausible reading except that the vesting of the power in Congress is exclusive to Congress. Multiple centers of power with the capacity to pay out the wealth of the United States government would clearly lead to economic chaos and could not be tolerated. Moreover, any other reading does violence to the rest of the Constitution which places the purse in Congress.

In any real world litigation in the Supreme Court concerning such a potential usurpation of political power by the executive, the court would enforce the plain meaning of the document and rule against Obama. But we do not live in a real-world of litigation before the Supreme Court, we live in a Kafkaesque environment in which justices like Chief Justice Roberts are liable to go way off the reservation and find all manner of fantastic constitutional justification for further contorting the Constitution. In the final analysis, we cannot rely on the Supreme Court to protect the integrity of the Constitution.

Nevertheless, Obama is probably not serious in these threats, he is most likely starting a campaign to make Congress out as a radical, out-of-control bunch of fanatics in thrall to The Tea Party which requires a Savior to ride in on a white horse and save the Republic.

The House of Representatives will face a stark choice: if it does not go to the wall on the issue of the debt, there will finally be a rupture in the Republican Party. If Obama can peel off enough Republicans to vote with the Democrats, as he has done with the fiscal cliff settlement, he will have achieved his goal of fracturing the Republican Party, dividing fiscal conservatives from "moderates," and rendering all opposition to his administration utterly irrelevant. In short, on this issue Boehner and the leadership of the House of Representatives must fight and die if necessary but they cannot compromise in any manner which is reminiscent of their cave-in last night.

"The battle of France's over and the battle of Britain must now begin," said and embattled but pugnacious Winston Churchill. The battle over the fiscal cliff is over and the battle over the debt ceiling must be fought and won. The battle starts now. Every elected Republican should be backing one plan, a reasonable plan, and not negotiate another step.

If the president will not accept the plan, which should be along the lines of that proposed by Paul Ryan, the president will have the option of watching the fault or taking unilateral action. Either way, the president will be the focus of a serious crisis.

Republicans, in contrast, are already in bad odor with the electorate and have very little more to lose -except their base and their party.

I am not so sure anymore about what game they are playing, other than it does result in the destruction of our country.

They are using some strategies we recognize, but even some progressives are starting to realize the endgame is not what they thought. In fact, it is being done ‘wrong’ per se.

Freeper Lorianne posted this the other day:

Wake Up Call – Next Bubble To Burst: Government Spending
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2973506/posts

As usual there is a bevy of FReepers that made comments, but I doubt they took the time to listen to the podcast given the source. I did listen to the podcast and was pretty shocked at the point of view being espoused. If what this guy says is true according to the progressive agenda, then I'm not sure where the regime is taking us?

I know it is not gross incompetence, because too many pieces of legislation fit together for a controlled collapse. But...my concern about what emerges post collapse is changing based on that podcast. If the useful idiots are just now realizing something is horribly wrong...then where are we really going? What is the real endgame?

Because it is NOT anything we currently think it is. Destruction of the Republic is not the war, it is just another battle in the game.

Get in line you linguine spines RePukelicans. How dare you resist his royal highness, his imperial majesty Comrade El Presidente Prince Sheik Caliph Imam Obama the Saviour or the DemocRat Socialist States of America. You scurrilous dogs. You most detested vermin. You don't have to resist the Anointed One. You must not resist him. He is smarter than you, more brilliant than you, more loved than you, more respected than you, more black than you, more brown than you, more yellow than you, more red than you and more cool than you. Just keep giving him everything he wants. Give him 1000 weeks of unemployment benefits so he can buy more votes. Give his unions the power to beat beyond recognition anyone who opposes his labor unions. Give all our money to all the Islamic countries of the world and help them succeed in establishing a Caliphate that will plunge this world into perpetual spiritual darkness. Get in line you slime dog Repukelicans. Knuckle under, bend over at the waist, grab your ankles, and smile. That's a good boy. Now beg. Beg that one of the conservative hating members of the press corps ask your opinion on anything so they can skewer you on the petard of their Marxism. Go on beg you worthless forms of human debris. Beg for forgiveness of sinning or imagining to sin against his holiness Obama./sarc

But I feel better for having written it.

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