"The validity of the public debt of the United States...shall not be questioned"

[yodermon]

Full Quote:

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.

14th Amendment, section 4
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am14

I'm curious about the "shall not be questioned" proscription... it's written in passive voice.. To whom is it directed? What are the penalties for "questioning" the public debt? How does one go about "questioning" the public debt in such a manner as to violate this amendment? If it cannot be violated, isn't it moot? Is calling SS trust fund bonds "worthless IOUs" such a violation? etc., etc.

My thinking is: when the bondholder redeems the bond, then the US gov't is disallowed, by Contitutional fiat, from *not* repaying the bond. What's the implication wrt the SSTF?

[Blue Meany]

1. It might have been directed at speculators. After all, they are

the one's who bought up the scrip issued during the Revolutionary War at discounted rates, then made a nice profit from it.

[rucky]

2. In the courts.

Case dismissed.

[Ian David]

3. A little green troll runs into the room and kicks you in the shin. n/t

[iamtechus]

4. "What's the implication wrt the SSTF?"

According to SS trust fund FAQs, the bonds can be redeemed at any time for face value.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html

[grantcart]

5. It is simply saying that it will pay all US bonds that were issued during the civil war

and it will not pay for any debts incurred by the confederacy. It was more pointed at killing the idea that the US was going to help Confederate Bond holders.


I suspect that it was aimed at Great Britain speculators that had financed Confederacy debt.

[ThomWV]

6. I agree with your assessment, and it sort of point blank said the debts were uninsured

Any chance of repayment of principal, let alone interest, would be lost with the war.

[ljm2002]

7. To me, it means that anyone who says SSTF is "only IOUs"...

...is breaking the law.

It's right there: you are not allowed to question its validity. Yet every time the rabid right wing talks about it they say "SS is broke, and the so-called Trust Fund has only worthless IOUs in it". That would seem to me to be in direct violation of the text you quoted.

Of course IANAL so who knows.

[Igel]

8. So the SSTF is part of a pension?

That's precisely not what it is.

Moreover, the debt level owed to each person is variable and set by Congress. That's a very strange debt.

And, another moreover: There are people collecting this "pension" who have never worked. A strange pension.

Then, of course, there are contextual issues. At the very least, you have to look at more than just the few words that jump out at you. On the face of it, this covers that "debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion." How many such debts does the "pension" that is Social Security apply to?

Well, presumably it applies primarily to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Probably not the desired response.

However, it's not a full quote. It's just one sentence out of one paragraph in the amendment. If you assume the entire paragraph deals with one issue, and that would be a good assumption. If you assume maybe the entire amendment--passed at one time--should be considered, that would be really good.

[pa28]

9. The OP highlights pensions.

However, the relevant part here is just "validity of public debt".

Since the SS trust fund consists of treasury issues recently referred to by a certain loud mouthed public official as "worthless IOU's" I get the OP's point.

It's ironic that the chair of the deficit commission is actively working to undermine faith in public debt for his own agenda when access to cheap debt finance is our greatest tool for keeping deficits contained at the moment.

[ljm2002]

11. Here's how I see it...

...the quote is pretty clear:

"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."

The primary sentence is:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, ... shall not be questioned.

The qualifying phrases are:

1 - "authorized by law" -- that one is clearly meant to apply fully, i.e. this statement applies to those debts that are authorized by law.

2 - "including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion" -- that one specifically names *some* of the debts that are being talked about; however, it does not limit the scope of applicability, which is "the public debt of the United States, authorized by law".

[pa28]

10. K&R

[SlipperySlope]

12. The government is not disallowed from repaying the bond.

The Supreme Court ruled on this in 1935 in the cases Nortz v. United States and Perry v. United States.

The bottom line is that Congress is free to rewrite the terms of bond repayment at any time.

I doubt we will see Congress ever outright repudiate a Bond, but I won't be surprised when they start redefining what "payment" means. Imagine this scenario; in 2010 you pay for a ten-year bond that is supposed to pay you $100,000 in 2020. When 2020 rolls around, instead of paying you the $100,000 cash promised, the treasury forces you to accept another bond that promises $100,000 in 2030.

Technically, the "shall not be questioned" part of the 14th Amendment was put in to protect the wealthy and the banks who had financed the Civil War. There was a fear by the capitalists of the day that they would not get paid back all the money they had given the government.

So it took less then seventy years from 1868 to 1935 for US debt to go from "shall not be questioned" to something that Congress could redefine as needed.