Posted on 05/16/2023 9:19:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Some Senate Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to “use” the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit by executive decree. For example, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) stated:
“The 14th Amendment is not anyone’s first choice. The first choice is that the Republicans raise the debt ceiling because the United States government never, ever, ever, ever defaults on its legal obligations. But if Kevin McCarthy is going to push the United States over a cliff, then it becomes the president’s responsibility to find an alternative path.”
As a former law professor and a senator for more than 10 years, Warren almost certainly knows that keeping the current debt ceiling doesn’t cause default. It merely forces the government to run a balanced budget—something the government should be doing anyway.
And all Warren needs to do is read the 14th Amendment to learn that it gives the president no power to “use” it to create more debt.
The debt limit is a law restricting how much the federal government may borrow. The current law says $34.4 trillion. If Congress refuses to change the law, it will remain at $34.4 trillion. Borrowing more than that is illegal. So the government will have to pay its debt obligations out of current revenue.
Could the federal government do that? Sure.
Current revenue is about eight times current interest payments. (In other words, debt service is about 13 percent of revenue.) Obviously, there’s enough money coming in to pay existing debt while retaining most government services. Of course, the feds would have to trim other parts of the budget. I’m sure readers have many suggestions on that score.
These facts are no secret. Moreover, they’re buttressed by experience: We have reached earlier debt limits on many occasions, but there has been no default. Mostly what happens is a few federal facilities close. (When that happened last time, the feds closed Rocky Mountain National Park. No problem: The Colorado state government took over the job.)
Still, every time we approach a new debt limit, unscrupulous politicians and their media propagandists claim we’re at risk of default. This is so patently false that we can only conclude that what concerns them isn’t default but something else.
What is that “something else”? That people might learn they really don’t need all that exorbitant federal spending. That they might decide they like the budget being balanced.
The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, soon after the Civil War. It’s the longest amendment ever adopted, because it addressed a multiplicity of issues. One reason for the amendment was to ensure that future Congresses, even if dominated by members from former Confederate states, would honor the Union Civil War debt.
The amendment has five sections. Sections 4 and 5 are relevant to our discussion. Here’s the pertinent language:
“Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned …
“Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
Notice what this language says:
The validity of U.S. public debt shall not be questioned. This means that the federal government may not use any pretext for refusing to pay off debt instruments, such as savings bonds and Treasury bills.
The amendment grants Congress the power to pass laws to ensure our debt obligations are met.
Now notice what this language doesn’t say:
It doesn’t say the government must borrow more to pay off existing debt; Congress may meet its obligations from existing revenue.
It doesn’t say Congress must change legal limits on borrowing.
Although it grants power to Congress, it grants none to the president—other than to enforce the laws enacted by Congress. This is because the Constitution requires that the president “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (Article II, Section 3). One of those laws the president must enforce is the national debt limit.
The principle that a government’s financial powers are lodged in a representative legislature rather than the executive is central to our political system. Many people died for that ideal.
When, in the 17th century, King Charles I exercised financial powers without the approval of Parliament, it led directly to the English Civil War. The king lost that war and his head (literally).
Then, in the 18th century, King George III and a Parliament not representing Americans tried to tax Americans. This led directly to the American Revolution. Again, the king lost. He did keep his head, but he lost all his power within the United States and most of it within Britain.
Biden would be wise to consult these precedents.
The fact that people such as Warren should even mention the possibility of the president’s violating the law and unilaterally taking on more public debt tells us what we need to know about them.
One of the talking points among those who want to raise the debt limit is that failure to do so would be a “calamity.” Or so claims Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. From experience, we know this isn’t true.
But here’s a real recipe for calamity: Imagine that to pay current debt without cutting spending, Biden tries to sell debt instruments on his own authority. (Call them “Biden Bonds.”) When the Supreme Court strikes down this autocratic edict (as it has struck down several of Biden’s other autocratic edicts), what then would be the effect on United States credit?
And since people in the bond market are risking their own money as Warren and Yellen are not, how many of them would be willing to purchase Biden Bonds? And if they refused to do so, what would that do to U.S. credit?
For more than 50 years, a super-majority of the American people have favored a constitutional amendment forcing the federal government, except in rare cases, to run a balanced budget. That would stop the feds from piling up more and more debt.
In 2017, I wrote (admittedly, a first draft) of such an amendment. It isn’t overly technical. It merely says this: Before Congress may raise the debt limit—in other words, before it runs a budget deficit—Congress must get the approval of a majority of the legislatures of states containing a majority of the U.S. population (pdf).
There are two principal reasons we don’t have a balanced budget amendment: Congress refuses to propose one for the states to ratify, and apologists for the national oligarchy have been misleading Americans about the procedure for proposing an amendment through a convention of states.
Eventually, Americans will get fed up with the delay and force their state lawmakers to call a convention. Let’s hope it will not be too late.
The 14th amendment isn’t a “break glass in an emergency.”
It ALWAYS applies.
Where it says, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law…” it means debt payments MUST be made. It is NOT authorization for funding current services, it is a REQUIREMENT to prioritize disbursements of funds FIRST to debt service.
If the gov defaults, and money is not longer flowing freely into and out of it, will the corruption be cleaned up through attrition?
No. The corrupt will always take priority as long as they have the men and guns to stay in control.
The US government already HAS defaulted on its’ obligations twice.
Once when it refused to redeem paper money in gold, as the law clearly provided.
Second time for silver.
RE: The US government already HAS defaulted on its’ obligations twice.
Ok, what catastrophic or disastrous event occured then?
ping
Medium and long term it enabled the government to inflate the currency at will. And here we are.
I know, why not confiscate all of the wealth from those in DC, now and in the past, who have spent and looted us into this mess? The US Government is now the biggest criminal organization this world has ever experienced.
How about a simple plan, for every dollar raised and equal dollar must be saved. Biden can help pick what is cut, else accept the list offered by the House.
You’d have to get up really really early every morning and work at it for long hard years to ever get as stupid as the fake Indian Liz Warren is. And she came by it naturally.
Oh it’s too late already, because we can’t live under democrat rule anymore. They’ve proven they can’t be trusted at all and have broken the franchise to install an illegitimate puppet president. Now they have purposely caused an invasion of illegal foreigners and are breaking the bank, all while they steal us blind to fill their hidden bank accounts. One way or another this cannot possibly end well for democrats.
Thanks for nothing Barak Obama, you could have really been something, instead your just a useless fool with a failed coup attempt on your record.
Warren distorts the simple facts. The McCarthy led House of Representatives has passed a debt ceiling raise bill. The Senate can pass it and Biden can sign it any day. Crisis averted.
The truth is the Senate and the president do not like the spending limits included in the debt limit bill. Hence you hear nothing from pious Romney who pens Wall Street Journal opinion editorial whining about the debt and then votes for bloated spending bills spin the trillions. Where is Lindsay Graham who runs to the cameras on almost any subject? How about Tim Scott who is considering a presidential run? Republican Senators are members of the club first which is why they fail to stand strongly with the House. They prefer to cave instead of actually taking a baby step toward fiscal sanity. Silence from them while the press and Dems beat up McCarthy for doing his job.
The GOP has a great story to countering the hysteria the Dems are trying to stir up. McConnell, Romney, Thune, Murkowski, Collins, Graham, Scott, Cornyn and the rest of the GOP Senators should be demanding in unison Schumer bring the House debt limit bill to the floor of the Senate for a vote. They should be accusing Schumer of playing with politics and endangering the economy by not voting on the bill.
Schumer fears a Senate vote because Manchin and Sinema might vote for the bill causing it to pass and then putting Biden in the position of vetoing a bill raising the debt ceiling. Why are Republicans in the Senate protecting Biden by not backing McCarthy and the Republicans in the House? Are they afraid of Biden’s weaponized FBI and DOJ? Or do they actually approve of reckless spending and ultimate bankruptcy for the nation?
^^This^^
Since the public has the overwhelming majority of the guns, I keep asking myself why we aren't in control.
Also, rarely discussed: In the event the debt ceiling isn’t increased, the President doesn’t have the authority to “pick and choose” which obligations would be paid and which would not. That would constitute an illegal line-item veto.
If the debt ceiling isn’t increased, the Congress, who have the sole “power of the purse” must decide what to cut and what to pay. Since the Congress fears few things more than the necessity to make decisions about actual cuts (as opposed to the reductions in rate of growth they typically call cuts), Congress will ultimately cave.
If the Congress wants to reduce debt, it can reduce spending. Period, end of story.
I forget which radio commentator used to say that the line-item veto was not illegal. It is not specifically prohibited.
The Congress sends things to the president to sign. It does not say anywhere that he must sign all of it.
What is the difference between sending him one page bill with 10 things on it, or sending him 10 bills with one thing each. Nothing.
By packaging things together they get to put bad things in with good/necessary things. This is how we’ve gotten to where we are.
I am not advocating for or against it. I am just stating the process.
But if I WERE asked to vote on it I would probably be for the line item veto.
Article 1, Section 7 of the US Constitution:
“Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it.”
Nothing here about “part of a bill”. He is required to sign it as presented, or return it with his objections.
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