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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: R2O who wrote (138411)	10/8/2013 12:39:57 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 149317

"Then, we must conclude, that the law establishing a debt ceiling is unconstitutional. But alas, it is not ( or is it? )" Maybe. Last week would have been a good time to find out. The world has heard enough from me on this subject, but three nuanced analyses are worth looking at. The first, by Henry J. Aaron of the Brookings Institution, notes that the debt-ceiling crisis threatens not just the president’s constitutional duty to make payments on the public debt but also the accompanying requirement that he spend money lawfully appropriated by Congress, either as part of a yearly budget or as part of statutes authorizing “entitlement” payments like Medicare or veterans’ benefits. Failing to do any of these things would be a default on the president’s duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The president may not be able to obey all three sources of law; if so, Aaron argues, he should make the payments and ignore the debt ceiling. “The debt ceiling is the fiscal equivalent of the human appendix — a law with no discoverable purpose,” he writes. “If Congress leaves the debt ceiling at a level inconsistent with duly enacted spending and tax laws, the president has no choice but to ignore it.” Since the debt ceiling has always been approve in the past it’s constitutionality has never been tested. Perhaps that’s why it has always been increased in the past. Congress saw it as a tool, a hammer if you will and didn’t want to risk loosing a valuable tool. Fast forward to 2013 and we have a minority of the majority in one house of congress who are essentially suicide bombers ready to blow up not just the U.S. economy but the world economy just to bring down the President they hate. It is also a matter of national security. Read more at http://themoderatevoice.com/187284/is-the-debt-limit-constitutional/#3zihZu4fmYleygQf.99

To: R2O who wrote (138411)	10/8/2013 1:01:20 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Respond to of 149317

You can say and do it the American way, which to the world nations do not hold any water. Pay interest, but hot the debt etc. etc. The world nations have so far looked to the US because of its political stability. No businessman wants to invest in a country if that country's political climate is unstable. In China, the Communist Govt. guarantees that political stability. But while in the US we did so all these years and made democracy work, now this political instability caused by gerrymandering, tampering with voting rights etc. etc. has come to signal to the world that the US is slipping and sliding into negative territory. Soon they will conclude that it has slid into a hopeless situation to the point that we have become an anarchy similar to what happened to Germany under Hitler. These are the first signs.

To: R2O who wrote (138411)	10/8/2013 1:50:07 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 149317

In any case, US can pay present interest demands using current inflows, hence, afaik, no default. That might be the case if it's only obligations were to treasury bill holders. But the government also owes money to 100's of thousands of contractors for services already delivered. There are 10's of thousands of legally binding contracts to be fulfilled, with the private sector having made investments to meet their obligation. That's not even to mention entitlements... Millions would begin to starve within a couple of weeks. Yes you get default. And yes you get at best a severe recession but much much more likely a long depression. And civil unrest. And yes the US becomes a world pariah as the entire world economy loses it's prime financial backstop, US Treasuries, and has to find some other way to make trading goods and services work. We don't want to go there.