For God's Sake, President Obama, Invoke the 14th Amendment and End This Madness in Washington

This summer the more obscure Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution was brought up in discussion by former President Clinton and several esteemed justices. This section was meant to assure the payment of Union Army debts after the Civil War, and to disavow Confederate ones, but was written in broader terms.

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in surpressing insurrection or rebellion," the critical sentence says, "shall not be questioned."

This is the constitutional escape hatch which Clinton and several legal scholars assert allows the president to lift the debt limit in these dire circumstances. Obama has said he talked to several legal scholars who are not certain that it is a winning argument. Methinks that another urgent conversation is in order, Mr. President, and the next time you appear on television in prime time you make a simple declarative statement: "I have evoked the terms of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to lift the debt ceiling. If my esteemed Republican opponents in the House choose to fight this move, I welcome their legal challenge in court."

That is a legal fight I would love to see in the midst of the next election campaign. I suspect they will retreat with their tails between their legs rather than go up against a fait accompli which has saved the economic system of the world. Yes, Mr. President, it IS time for the Founding Fathers of the nation to come to your -- and our -- rescue. Do it! Today!

 

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Comments

[mskimberlyclark]

01:20 AM on 07/28/2011

Hugh, we cannot reduce Federal spending retroactively. Any budget cuts would be for the future. They would not affect the amount of money we owe now. If you cut up your credit cards you still have to pay for the items you've already charged. I can't make it any more simple to understand. I won't even try to explain that we have these debts because of Bush's changes in the tax codes and a war in Iraq that was sold to the American public as "fighting Osama." You are wrong all over the place.

[Hugh Everett]

02:31 AM on 07/28/2011

“Hugh, we cannot reduce Federal spending retroactively. Any budget cuts would be for the future.”

Reductions in future spending is exactly what we are proposing. For example, no more shrimp on treadmill studies. The goal is to end a trillion dollars worth of this nonsense immediately. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KskaUMuARR8

“If you cut up your credit cards you still have to pay for the items you've already charged.”

We’re talking about going far beyond cutting credit cards. We’re talking about cancelling cable, wifi, and phone. We’re talking about selling the car and buying a motorcycle. We’re talking about immediate cost savings in the federal government, like privatizing the jobs of a few million donut-eating federal employees.

I can't make it any more simple to understand­. We are REDUCING federal spending. You are cordially invited to start liking it.

[Hugh Everett]

06:22 PM on 07/27/2011

Barack Obama’s legal team has advised that parliamentary maneuvers and extralegal shenanigans cannot be employed to raise the debt limit. The only remaining option for Democrats is to reduce the level of federal spending, and this is something they’ve never considered throughout the entire history of the Democrat Party. It’s like Superman eating Kryptonite, or the Wicked Witch of the West taking a bath. They simply cannot visualize whirled peas, much less eating their peas.

The New York Times notes that Obama expressed doubt about the legality of using the 14th amendment to force an extension during remarks last week. "I have talked to my lawyers," said Obama. “They are not persuaded that that is a winning argument.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that the 14th amendment "is not available" to end the debt ceiling standoff. "There are no easy ways out here. There are no tricks, there is no citing of the Constitution that suddenly allow us to borrow."

[Jon Konyar]

03:44 PM on 07/27/2011

So where does it say that the President alone can borrow more and increase the debt?

Not paying the debt on time does not make the validity of the debt go away. No one is questioning the validity of the debt.

If you miss a payment on your mortgage, does that mean your mortgage is no longer valid?

[luv2sng777]

03:21 PM on 07/27/2011

All I have to add to this is amen, Jay.

[gabriel72]

02:58 PM on 07/27/2011

only democratic Presidents have to do things legally. Bush would have just done it and made a retroactive law.