3 ways Obama could bypass Congress

[bornskeptic]

(snip)
Are there other ways for the president to raise money besides borrowing?

Sovereign governments such as the United States can print new money. However, there's a statutory limit to the amount of paper currency that can be in circulation at any one time.

Ironically, there's no similar limit on the amount of coinage. A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination. So some commentators have suggested that the Treasury create two $1 trillion coins, deposit them in its account in the Federal Reserve and write checks on the proceeds.

The government can also raise money through sales: For example, it could sell the Federal Reserve an option to purchase government property for $2 trillion. The Fed would then credit the proceeds to the government's checking account. Once Congress lifts the debt ceiling, the president could buy back the option for a dollar, or the option could simply expire in 90 days. And there are probably other ways that the Fed could achieve a similar result, by analogy to its actions during the 2008 financial crisis, when it made huge loans and purchases to bail out the financial sector.

(snip)
http://us.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/28/balkin.obama.options/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

The third way is the Fourteenth Amendment. The article is well worth reading. The author is a yale Professor of Constitutional Law.

[leveymg]

1. The QE2 suggestion looks like it might be viable. Just have the Fed lend the money to the Treasury.

That might work - there's recent precedent - if the Fed can bail-out the global banks with $16T, they can certainly lend the Treasury a trillion or two dollars until we get a clean debt ceiling vote out of Congress.

Balkin has an excellent blog. Glad to see someone else here reads it, :thumbsup:

[Igel]

2. The fed already has a couple trillion in government debt.

It's part of the public debt. Hence the workarounds.