Democratic members have raised a novel argument under the Fourteenth Amendment that the refusal to raise the debt ceiling is unconstitutional. For full disclosure, I was asked about this argument weeks ago by members who believe that forcing the country to default would be not just catastrophic but unconstitutional. I will be discussing this topic today on CNN and tonight on Countdown.
The relevant language of the Fourteenth Amendment states:
The argument goes that Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment declares:
“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.”
The argument goes that, by not lifting the debt limit, Congress is “questioning” “the validity of the public debt of the United States.” Under this logic, advocates are encouraging President Obama to simply pay the debts in accordance with the Constitution. That would be an extreme step that would add a constitutional crisis to an economic crisis.
The “authorized by law” clause could present an interesting debate since the debt ceiling is part of a federal statute — though conversely so is the obligation to pay things like social security.
The language is certainly written in absolute terms but it is not likely that a court would rule that it makes a failure to lift the debt ceiling unconstitutional. Congress can argue that it fully intends to pay its debts, but that there is a political dispute over how and when. They can argue that they were not challenging the “validity” of the debt but the priority in the payment. The United States will still be fully liable for the debt and the interest.
Of course, as with the Libyan War, the Administration could trigger the constitutional fight on the belief that no one will be able to get standing to challenge its payment of the debt.
Jonathan Turley
FDR’s Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wrote in his diary:
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. … We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … and an enormous debt to boot!”
“And as I have said before maybe if we didn’t have to pay for social security and maybe if we could be taxed less we would have money to send our children to college and to sustain ourselves or our heirs in our old age or in the event of our death.”
Roco,
Just as it’s been said that all politics are local, all politics are personal too. Without Social Security and Medicare I would literally be dead today. Now I was completely self supporting from age 18 through 60, when I became disabled and could not continue to work. Social Security Disability helped me get through financially and Medicare paid for my heart condition and heart transplant.
Most of my working years I paid more in social Security taxes, than I did in payroll taxes. Those taxes were the same as insurance, except the money collected went into the general fund to cover the ridiculous defense budget. SS is solvent through 2036 if nothing changes, but if the proceeds went into the promised “lockbox” SS would remain solvent indefinitely.
However, I understand that you holding onto your money and paying as little taxes as possible, is uppermost in your mind. You don’t know me and I don’t know you, so why should you care if I’m alive or not? Well by the same token when tornadoes destroy the Midwest and floods destroy the South, why should I care? If you or a loved one becomes sick or indigent, no skin off my ass. That’s the kind of society that you want and you’ve got the right to want it, but given the vagaries of life I’d be careful what you wish for. Living in a survival of the fittest society can be rather stressful, not to mention deadly.
Roco,
If you’d like, next time I can just insert a premise into your argument the way that you and your buddy do to others. Normally I wouldn’t do something like that but if you’d like that instead of an accurate reflection of my uncertainty over your views, I’ll be glad to make an exception. However, if you have a problem with conditional statements and the fact that they offer options, I suggest taking it up with the English language. Your habit of chasing your own tail though is your habit to break.
GeneH:
he just said using a conditional gives you a way out. Which is does.
As I can say, If GeneH rapes young girls then he needs to go to jail.
It is the same form as what you posited above. I have not said you rape young girls but the statement is negative and that was your intent. It was not about answering my assertions but rather attacking me in a round about way. And then having me chase my tail trying to convince you I am not against all taxation.
I would then be on the defensive trying to defend that which I never posited and leaving you free to evade my original contention.
That would be because I find very little reason to take you seriously and ever increasing reasons to not take you seriously, kderosa. For example, your misunderstanding about how conditional statements work. If Roco believes in X then Y. Conversely if he does not believe X then not Y. Since I did not know if Roco was for no taxation or not, phrasing it as a conditional statement using “if” was appropriate. Had I said “since” or “because” Roco believes X then Y, that would inserting a premise into Roco’s argument that he did not make. I would rather express uncertainty in the form of a conditional statement as to Roco’s views (barring evidence to the contrary to make an affirmative disposition to his beliefs) than make your common error of inserting a premise into his argument that he did not make.
Your inability to grasp basic logical functions is just another reason not to take you seriously, kderosa.
@GeneH,
It’s seems that whenever someone disagrees with your precious worldview that you have reason to increment your “reason not to take you seriously” counter.
Make up whatever you like.
It’s just all that more reason not to take you seriously, kderosa.
@GeneH
Please, stop digging.
If [condition], then [result]
condition = “[Roco doesn’t] want to pay taxes.
result = “[Roco is ] free to move to another country”
Roco never came close to stating that he doesn’t want to pay taxes.
You mischaraterized his statement and created a strawman argument. Putting the strawman argument into a conditional phraseology is often how the strawman argument is presented for maximum deceptive value and to maintain plausible deniability.
So my characterization of what you said is entirely accurate.
kderosa,
“Where did Roco say that no taxes should be paid? Yeah, I didn’t think so, but that was a lovely little strawman argument you just made.”
Again you mischaracterize.
What I said was, “If you don’t want to pay taxes, you are free to move to another country, but I’m pretty sure if no taxes is your primary criteria in selection that you’ll be limited to war zones and barren rocks in the middle of the ocean.”
Since here others have spent a lot of time correcting your basic abuses of language, I guess I’ll have to continue that tradition since you seem persistent in committing such abuses. Let’s start with the definition of the word “if”. In my sentence, both uses of “if” are as a noun. According to Webster’s, “if” when used as a noun means “1: condition, stipulation 2: supposition “. That makes what I said a conditional statement. I did not say Roco said that no taxes should be paid. Rephrased into a simpler language that no doubt you’ll mischaracterize or fail to understand, I said that if that was his primary concern was paying no taxes then he should move elsewhere.
A strawman argument is based upon misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. I did not misrepresent Roco’s position. I said if his position was X then Y.
You, on the other hand, have just misrepresented my position in an attempt to knock it down.
The only strawman here is the one you just attempted to use on me by mischaracterizing my statements into an absolute attribution that I did not make to Roco or anyone else.
In large part, it is tactics like this on your part that I’ve now seen you use many times on others and now on me that lead me to the conclusion I shouldn’t take anything you say seriously.
Mespo727272:
I pay quite a bit more than $2,000 in taxes. But that is not the point, and I agree some taxes are necessary to pay for roads and bridges and the military and the police and a court system, etc. But those are a very small percentage of our federal budget.
And as I have said before maybe if we didn’t have to pay for social security and maybe if we could be taxed less we would have money to send our children to college and to sustain ourselves or our heirs in our old age or in the event of our death.
You and I have a fundamental philosophical difference. I believe a man has a right to his own life, that it does not belong to the state or to another person, you obviously believe a man’s life belongs to the state and by extension other men. I have more self esteem than to hold to a slave mentality.
Free yourself, read the DOI again for the first time and really understand what Jefferson was saying, instead of interpreting his words through the progressive translator that is your liberal arts and legal education.
@Mespo & @GeneH
Where did Roco say that no taxes should be paid? Yeah, I didn’t think so, but that was a lovely little strawman argument you just made.
“we’ll happliy ship you to a lovely bungalow in Mogadishu” and “you are free to move to another country”
So kind of you, Dear Leaders. Why not just shoot him and charge the price of the bullet to his family?
Roco,
Actually the WPA is widely considered a success by reputable historians and economists. The biggest criticisms of the program were that the projects were deployed along political lines with the wealthier Western and Northern states getting more of the projects than the poorer South.
Your allusions to gulags was quite entertaining though. Do you call people “pinkos” or refer to the “Red menace” too?
If you have a problem with taxation though, I suggest you take it up with the Constitution, the Framers and Congress. Art. I, sec. 8 states in part “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”. Taxation is legal and Constitutional. If you don’t want to pay taxes, you are free to move to another country, but I’m pretty sure if no taxes is your primary criteria in selection that you’ll be limited to war zones and barren rocks in the middle of the ocean.
Roco:
“I have a fundamental philosophical difference with Krugman, namely he believes my money is not my money. I believe my money is my money because I worked for it, it took time out of my life to earn it. My time does not belong to the state.”
********
Ok, give back that military protection, use of roads, the social security net for any of your surviving and qualifying family members, your student loans at less than market interest rates, your FHA loan, your freedom to spout most any nonsense you think up, etc. and we’ll give you back your $2,000.00 or so a year you’ve paid in federal taxes for the past 20 odd years. You waive your right to any future benefits and we’ll happliy ship you to a lovely bungalow in Mogadishu.
GeneH,
“direct hiring and spending by the government similar to the Works Projects Administration created by FDR as a response to the Depression.”
Yeah, becasue that worked so well during the great depression.
GeneH:
No, I am against Krugman because he believes a stimulus will work contrary to the evidence of the 1930’s.
Government takes too much already in taxes and they should cut back and so should spending by federal, state and local governments.
I have a fundamental philosophical difference with Krugman, namely he believes my money is not my money. I believe my money is my money because I worked for it, it took time out of my life to earn it. My time does not belong to the state.
Instead of taxing me, why don’t you throw me in a gulag for 3 or 4 months a year and have me work for free on some highway project or sewage treatment facility?
Roco,
If you knew what “that fool Krugman” has actually said, you’d know that what he wants is stimulus in the form he’s been advocating all along: direct hiring and spending by the government similar to the Works Projects Administration created by FDR as a response to the Depression. There is a difference between theft by private parties of stimulus funds and an actual functional stimulus. I suspect what really bothers you about Krugman is that he strongly advocates taxing the rich and corporations to pay down the deficit instead of letting the majority of them slide on paying any taxes at all (the current situation).
@TonyC
This is what, as Roco points out, what the previous and current administrations believed. Then a few trillion dollars in stimulus and QE was spent in good Keynesian fashion to do the things you list and in search of the elusive multiplier effect.
And then a funny thing happened. None of the theory worked in practice. Unemployment shot way above where the admin thought it would go with no stimulus, it became clear that money was only being put backinto crony pockets (not exactly an efficient placement), adn the multiplier effect didn’t happen.
How long are you going to keep peddling this failed theory?
Tony C:
that book was written in 1939. There are principles in economics. We are seeing the same thing as we saw in the 30’s. And we have about the same number of people as a percentage of the work force not working. Some are on government support. In fact thank god for that or the unemployment numbers would be staggering. Although thank god that a good number of illegals went home.
The stimulus didnt do one thing except put money in the pockets of the friends of Bush (through tarp) and the friends of Obama (through stimulus). And that fool Krugman wants more?
The contention by the anonymous author that “Government intervention to stimulate the economy … reduces employment over the long term” is unsupported, and in my experience with that sort of argument it is always based on conclusions from an overly simplified model *also* full of unwarranted assumptions that doesn’t correspond to reality.
The reality is that government has a ton of work to get done, for example on infrastructure, and accelerating some of that work to alleviate unemployment puts money into pockets that can save financial lives, and by the multiplier effect prevent a cascade of further unemployment.
Jobs do not have to be permanent to prevent disaster, and that is true for preventing the personal disaster of individuals losing their homes and cars by defaulting on loans, and true for the economy in general. Government jobs do not have to cost anything in the long run; the infrastructure money will be spent sooner or later anyway, so shifting it from the future to now doesn’t change a thing, except prevent some people and businesses from falling off the cliff.
Further, appropriate government spending on infrastructure projects that are available to the public to exploit for free (like research at universities, or roads, or parks, or other public works) can boost the economy permanently by enabling previously impossible feats. Interstate highways, for example, created huge private industry shipping companies, and created significantly lower prices for goods across the country. If the government invested billions of job-creating dollars in fundamental alternative fuel science, it could produce trillions in economic benefit.
Government can **invest** in creating public knowledge in ways that no private enterprise ever will. EVER. Even the Internet we are using here is the direct result of government investments in developing public knowledge for its own sake (By the Advanced Research Projects Agency).
kderosa:
have you ever heard of WH Hutt? here is someone commenting on one of his theorys:
“Is it more productive for a highly trained but
unemployed engineer to bag groceries for pay or to invest time without
pay in looking for an engineering job? If he or she took the grocery bagging
job, Keynes would presumably be satisfied; we would be closer to
full employment. But the economy would clearly not be more productive,
which it must be to create new jobs. We should also keep in mind
that an employment agency employee job searching for the engineer
would be considered gainfully “employed,” while the engineer doing
the same work would still be “unemployed.”
is brings us to Hutt’s crucial concept of sub-optimal employment,
not fully worked out in this book, but a crucial contribution to economic
thought. Government intervention to stimulate the economy
and increase employment not only reduces employment over the long
run. It also creates an enormous amount of “sub-optimal employment,”
which means that it leaves people unable to find the work for which they
are best suited.”
I think that is exactly what we are seeing now. The government needs to reduce spending and cut taxes. Expanding the debt will give us nothing but more of the same.