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TNR: The Debt Ceiling: Why Obama Should Just Ignore It
The philosopher-kings over at The New Republic (which is still deeply admired by both its subscribers) recommend that The One just ignore that silly debt limit thing.With a Republican-controlled House demanding large cuts in present and future spending in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling, the possibility that the federal government will have trouble financing and issuing new debt is becoming more frighteningly likely each day. Uh, dudes, you're conflating two points here: one if whether the gummint can legally issue new debt; the other is whether the gummint can find someone to buy the debt at a price we can afford. When it comes to Congress's ability to stop the Obama administration from ignoring the debt ceiling, legal experts An expert is a guy with a briefcase more than 100 miles from home note that the first obstacle standing in its way is the question of standing, or whether a certain party has the right to sue over an issue in the first place. Jonathan Zasloff, a professor at the UCLA School of Law who has discussed this idea on a blog that he writes with several other academics not one of whom has ever examined a witness in court or written a contract told me that while an order from the president for the Treasury Department to continue issuing new debt sounded extreme "Extreme" meaning "something that would provoke a major Constitutional crisis and imperil the legitimacy of the US government" it was unclear who could prove sufficient injury from the decision that would qualify the person to sue the administration in court. A debatable point but (1) voters have standing to vote and (2) Congress has standing to impeach The One. So: go ahead, make my day. But even if standing could be established and the Obama administration gets taken to court, some legal experts all of whom apparently have a lot of time on their hands, being untroubled by things like clients willing to pay for their services note that an additional argument of surprising strength could be made: The government cannot legally default on its debts. Well that's peachy news for all holders of US debt. I guess it all depends on correctly fixing the dollar/wampum exchange rate. Of course, Epps admits, a move like this would represent a major assertion of executive power. Sort of like blowing off the War Powers Act. "The Code? You're pirates. Hang the Code, and hang the rules! They're more like guidelines anyway!" Posted by: Matt 2011-06-26 |
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