Executive-Legislative Negotiation on the Debt Ceiling was Unnecessary
By RBBantiles
@RBBantiles (347)
Philippines
August 4, 2011 5:21am CST
The drawn-out negotiations and acrimonious debates on the debt ceiling between the Executive and Legislative branches of the US government succeeded too well in making the US, rightly or wrongly, a spectacle to the world of ungovernability and parasitism. Just read what Russian Prime Minister Putin has recently said.
This could not have happened had President Obama just implemented Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution which reads:
"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."
President Obama could just have told Speaker Boehner and his Republican cohorts in the House of Representatives: "Go hang yourselves. I will raise the debt ceiling even without your consent."
Of course, he didn't. Instead, he patiently negotiated with them. I think President Obama would have been justified if he had done so. He has the power and support in the Constitution and the law.
How about you? Would you have supported President Obama's unilateral decision to raise the debt ceiling and borrow money to discharge US obligations without the approval of the US Congress?
1 response
@BalthasarTheRat (656)
• United States
4 Aug 11
The interprettation of that passage, particularly the words "validity" and "authorized by law", can be twisted in different ways. The last time a President tried was Nixon and that caused extreme retaliation from Congress (and later ostracizing from his own party as they hung all of Watergate on him).
Basically, the 14th Amendment allows America to function in the red as long as it wants, but it also, by virtue of the "authorized by law" part, says that Congress is still in charge of the budget and by law of Congress they are bound to the debt limits they set (excepting, of course, that they keep raising the danged thing).
It's not like this was the first time it's been raised: Over 70 times since first thought of in 1914, including 7 in the past ten years, but only this time did Congress seriously try to hold the raising of the limit hostage in order to get concessions. What could have been done quietly, or avoided altogether by cutting spending and dismissing deep tax cuts, instead became a Worldwide joke.
Congress needs to get control of the budget and show some responsibility for the mess they have collectively caused!
