The 14th Amendment was passed after the Constitution and its first 13 Amendments, so that it supersedes any provision of the earlier documents with which it might conflict, and modifies any related matter. That is what "amendment" means.
Because the 14th Amendment states, the "validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law....shall not be questioned", the country must pay its public debt. There is no discretion, no choice. Yes, it is Congress that has borrowing, taxing and spending powers, but the 14th Amendment's command that the country's obligations be paid makes it clear that those powers are not discretionary once an obligation has been authorized by law.
Analyzing this from the perspective of creditors, all holders of obligations by the United States government would have the right to sue to compel action if Congress does not do one of the following: a) raise revenues to pay those obligations; and/or b) lift the debt ceiling so we can borrow to pay those obligations; or c) pass a law canceling those obligations, so they are no longer authorized by law.
That is it. There is no room in the Constitution, as amended, for maintaining obligations but also not paying.
For example, suppose one held a US Treasury bond. If that bond is unpaid (or, arguably, when non-payment is sufficiently imminent), as an injured party, one should have standing to sue Congress to compel it to provide the funds and the authority to pay me. A properly informed Court would find that Congress may have the power to borrow money and raise taxes, but, that for obligations already authorized by law, it must exercise one or the other of both of those powers to meet those obligations.
Moreover, since the president has sworn an oath to "faithfully execute the laws" of the United States, he is also compelled by Constitutional language in the 14th Amendment to pay the country's duly-authorized obligations.
It is not discretionary, neither for Congress nor for the president. The Congress can determine the sources of those payments -- debt or revenue -- but it cannot leave the president without the means to pay.
Let us be very clear. Congress could not be compelled by a Court or an individual to establish Social Security or Medicare or rack up debt as it did under George W. Bush by reducing taxes, running wars, and providing a healthcare benefit and refusing to pay for any of it by matching those expenses with revenues. But, once Congress authorizes those obligations, and the president signs off, then, short of canceling those obligations, Congress has no discretion not to pay, and the President has no discretion to withhold payment.
If the Congress does not provide the necessary funding, through use of its powers, it is violating the oath of office. If the president does not pay the country's obligations, ditto for him.
One cannot brandish one's fealty to the Constitution and, at the same time, refuse to make the money available to pay our financial obligations. The latter is unconstitutional.
The Constitution, as amended, absolutely prohibits the United States from being a dead-beat nation. That seems like a pretty good idea.
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He has deadbeat experience, so he seems to be the RIGHT man for the job.
But the bottom line is that the Pres has ANOTHER option.. He can shut down the Government, in the same fashion as if Congress had never passed a budget/spending bill. If you stop the apparatus by which the Government enters into your aforementioned obligations, you are curtailing spending. And his justification would be the uncertainty as to the availability of funds as provided by Congress, to fulfill the obligations of the Government (which he runs by the way), as directed by Congress.
I THOROUGHLY agree that the power to get us out of this problem lies squarely on Congress, they have the power of appropriations, taxation, and borrowing. The President can do nothing about that. But he DOES have the power of actually SPENDING the money.
In short, the President has HUGE Executive power which he can rely on to bend Congress to his will, without having to plunge the country into what you KNOW will be a Constitutional Crisis. Whether you think Congress is acting like spoiled children, or is sticking to their guns, neither of those groups compromise very well.
As indicated in the article, the government can, if it wishes, repeal Medicare--then its only debt is already-incurred, but as-yet unpaid, claims as of the date of repeal. But, it cannot keep Medicare authorized, have people in good faith seek and receive care, and then not pay. That would be a violation of the 14th Amendment.
Agreed. But it can cancel contracts, lay off employees, and so forth as well as repeal or scale down Medicare. Then it would be obligated only for services already performed and for those it is willing to continue funding.
As I re-read your blog, I realize that's exactly what you said. :-)
It doesn't matter whether the incurred Medicare bill is a valid debt, or just an unpaid obligation, you cannot borrow money to pay for it. It is a seperate and distinct power of the legislature.
So to get back to your article, thoroughly agreed Congress put us here, do not agree with any intonation that the President can get us out of it by some slight of hand. I beleive the only option available, which has not been discussed, is shutting down the government as if no spending bill was passed. Clearly the President cannot raise revenues, either through borrowing or otherwise. And clearly the government cannot spend money that Congress has not provided.
(a) All Revenue bills must originate in the House of Representatives.
(b) All Wars must be declared.
(c) Funding for "raising an Army" must be re-appropriated every two years.
If you don't like the way that the document is written, there is Article Five. Push an Amendment through by the Due Process of Law and you can change anything you like.
Amendment Fourteen does not alter anything about the appropriations process, as self-evidenced by the practices of Congress after that Amendment was passed. All revenue bills originated in the House. World Wars I and II were "declared," and funding was renewed every two years.
For the past sixty years, exactly as "Ike" Eisenhower foresaw, our nation bankrupted ITSELF on the altar of "War, Inc." and it now seeks to bankrupt the planet. But we actually represent only 5% or so of the population of this planet. "No, we can't" impose our currency-units, and with them, our crimes, upon that population-at-large.
Nor should We, the People of the United States, allow these High Crimes to rain down upon ourselves.
Obligations, such as payments to Medicare, are not public debt and therefore the 14th does not mandate that they be paid.
Medicare, on the other hand, is not fully funded by taxes, is not solvent, and no money has been borrowed from the program, so it is not part of the national debt.
Contracts for military expenditures, as well as all kinds of other government contracts, are obligations not public debt.
I'm not suggesting that the government renege on any of this. I'm simply saying that the only thing the 14th amendment covers is the 14.3 trillion public debt. Obama can't invoke the 14th to pay for Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, military contracts, government employee wages, and so on.
He could only invoke the 14th if the tax revenues were insufficient to make the payments on the 14.3 trillion debt. And that isn't happening.