GOP freak-out over ‘14th Amendment Option’ begins

[babylonsister]

Posted with permission.


http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_07/gop_freakout_over_14th_amendme030719.php

July 07, 2011 9:55 AM
GOP freak-out over ‘14th Amendment Option’ begins

By Steve Benen


Extending the debt limit is necessary to pay the bills the country already owes. As Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley argued before there was a Democratic president, “Raising the debt limit is necessary to preserve the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. We cannot as a Congress pass spending bills and tax bills and then refuse to pay our bills. Refusing to raise the debt limit is like refusing to pay your credit card bill — after you’ve used your credit card.”

Now, of course, Republicans want to rewrite the rules and not pay our bills. There’s a credible debate underway as to whether the GOP even has a choice in the matter.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution seems to prevent the United States from refusing to pay its bills. The language reads, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.” This constitutional provision, according to some legal scholars, offers President Obama a way out if congressional Republican decide they’d rather shoot the hostage: he can pursue the “14th Amendment Option” and simply pay our obligations anyway, debt ceiling be damned.

The subject came up briefly during yesterday’s White House Twitter Town Hall, with President Obama saying, “I don’t think we should even get to the constitutional issue. Congress has a responsibility to make sure we pay our bills.”

Left unsaid is what the president is prepared to do if Congress ignores its responsibility and refuses to pay our bills.

Constitutional experts can speak to this dispute with far more authority than I can, but it’s worth noting that the mere possibility is starting to cause a minor freak-out in Republican circles.

Later today, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) will introduce a ‘sense of the Senate’ resolution that says the president does not have the authority to sidestep the debt ceiling, which is set to expire in August.

“I strongly disagree with those who suggest the president has the unilateral authority to put the American people in even great levels of debt,” Graham says in a statement. “Every time the debt ceiling has been raised it has been through an act of collaboration between the president and Congress. That is not only the right policy decision to make, but the correct political decision as well. We have a president, not a king. Our resolution puts the Senate on record that any debt-limit increase, today or in the future, should be passed by the Congress and signed by the President.”

Graham isn’t lying when he says, in the past, debt-ceiling increases have always been “an act of collaboration between the president and Congress.” What he neglected to mention, though, is that we’ve never had a party prepared to pursue default, on purpose, and jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States before now.

[still_one]

1. Obama doesn't have the guts to exercise the 14th amendment. In fact he has already put social

security and medicare on the chopping block, so I know where he is coming from

[kiranon]

2. 14rh Amendment is the way to go! Need to out fox the Republicans

and that shouldn't be all that hard to do if Obama has the will to go forward with this.

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. "I don’t think we should even get to the constitutional issue."

... and I'm willing to help Republicans steal from Granny to prevent it."

Social security has enough money in the bank that it won't be exhausted in the forseeable future. (30 years is not forseeable).

SS cuts are for the sole purpose of relieving the bank (e.g. rich taxpayers) from permitting withdrawals from that account.

It's the rich people's money. They stole it fair and square.

[ladywnch]

4. Republicans - The Impeachment Party

all these guys know how to do is impeach....or threaten to impeach.

This meme is another thing the Dems need to hit with.......'all republicans are interested in (besides serving the rich/corporations) is impeachment procedings...not governing.', 'republicans don't' get their way?...impeach.', 'like petulant children who don't get their way......they scream impeach.'

they would LOVE an impeachment proceeding, that would give them cover for not doing ANYTHING till 2012 elections....and let's face it.....they don't want to do anything except collect campaign funds. Republicans would love to bring Congress to a dead stop and then campaign on the platform that Dems haven't done anything.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

5. K&R! IMO invoking the debt clause of the 14th would be a constitutional response

by President Obama to an unconstitutional power-grab by obstructionist Republicans. The Greedy Oil Party is risking crashing the world economy to advance their long-term "starve the beast" strategy.

Has extension of the debt ceiling, which has occurred hundreds of times in the past, ever been used in the way the Rs are using it?

The whole Republican-Party-Grover-Norquist position is just silly IMO.

Just ask yourself, what is the predicted cost of Dubya's expiring "tax cuts" over the nest ten years? The answer: about $4 trillion. Clearly, it was Dubya's "tax cuts" that exploded the structural deficit--there can be no doubt about that. Refusing to budge on raising some tax revenues to help close the structural deficit is just ludicrous to me.

Why don't Democrats inform the public about the Rs' "starve the beast" bankruptcy plan for the indefinite future?

Rs are trying to blame Obama for "wasteful spending" that has stanched Dubya's 800,000-per-month job losses and turned the economy in the upward direction. Much of extra Government spending during recessions is automatic, and all of it is cyclical, not structural like the huge hole Dubya's "tax cuts" blew in the long-term budget. And what would the Rs have done to turn the economy around? They have obstructed even most small-business tax cuts the Obama administration has proposed, and continue to do so even now! IMO they've consistently opposed tax breaks for ACTUAL job creators, and ignored a consensus among economists that extra untargeted tas breads for the top 2 percent of the income distribution have weak or no effects on job growth.