Friday, December 14, 2012

Can President Obama raise the debt ceiling on his own?

NO! Not even under the 14th Amendment:
...When the 14th Amendment was passed, Senator Benjamin “Bluff” Wade of Ohio, a proponent, set forth the rationale: “I believe that to do this will give great confidence to capitalists and will be of incalculable pecuniary benefit to the United States, for I have no doubt that every man who has property in the public funds will feel safer when he sees that the national debt is withdrawn from the power of a Congress to repudiate it and placed under the guardianship of the Constitution.” 
In 1935, in Perry v. United States, the Supreme Court observed that the Public Debt Clause confirmed the “fundamental principle” that Congress may not “alter or destroy” debts already incurred. However, even if Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling and additional borrowing is curtailed, the federal government’s revenues are more than enough to satisfy current debt payments and enable it to avoid a default.
Meanwhile, the Constitution clearly provides that borrowing money requires congressional action. In Article I, Section 8, Congress is granted the power “to borrow money on the credit of the United States.” As Andrew Grossman of the Heritage Foundation has explained, the power of the purse — including the authority to tax, spend, and borrow — is clearly legislative, according to the Constitution. Nothing in the Public Debt Clause takes this power away from Congress and assigns it to the president...
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1 comment:

Dumb Plumber said...

So, let me get this straight. Uncle Ben Bernanke is printing money like crazy and is selling bonds at a rate of $48 billion per month. I'm a little hazy on the trail of obligations, but isn't this a way to drive around the debt ceiling?