Gee...... And whose submitted budgets that are so stupid and filled with crap that even his own party votes them down 100% to nothing? Oh that's right President Obama. Who refuses to sit down and hammer out a budget? President Obama and the Democrats in the Senate.
I'll take your dodge as acknowledgement that until the crazies took over the Republican Party no one has been reckless enough to try and use economic catastrophe to extort policy changes they didn't have the votes to get through the normal process.
Amazing how the 14th Amendment, which was added after the Civil War along with the 13th & 15th amendments to protect the rights of former slaves and aid in reintegrating the southern states into the union has been twisted about in all possible ways to apply to things never imagined by the people who wrote it.
But that's not the situation. The creditors will extend us as much credit as we need. So the choice is default on the mortgage, or accepting the offer from the credit card for a balance increase. I'd like to keep my house.
From the article: Some of you may not like it, but the situation we have today is exactly what concerned the authors of 14.4.
Gul, apparently, doesn't understand how our representative government works. Or the saying "it takes two to tango."
I'm not sure that this is true; cash on hand is going to reach a point where government services just stop (we're already there partially, but eventually there won't be anything for military pay or whatever service you hold dear). This should be pretty much expected by everyone; if its a service from the government that cannot pay for itself, it goes away. The real question is what happens when insert-time-value-here Treasury Bond(s) comes due and the Treasury finds itself without the cash on hand to pay; you say that can't happen and I say I don't trust the guys in the Treasury to juggle all the numbers effectively. Hell I just cashed some bonds I had sitting around that were years over due; someone could simply show up with a few billion in 10 year bonds that they have - there's nothing stopping them and they're still valid debt - there's no way to predict that behavior (especially if people *think* bonds are a bad investment and want to cash them in). Even hints of that happening can erode the bond market and really fuck over the US on the world stage. Everyone uses US bonds as a security because of the 14th. How'd you feel about the financial markets deciding to go for the Saudi Riyal (Slogan: Backed by OIL!) or Russian Ruble (Backed By Natural Gas and Corruption!) simply because the US can't fucking get its act together? You might say that isn't possible, but you're putting way more trust in an institution that has had years of being able to play fast and lose with spending, I don't trust them to be able to handle the change with only a few weeks of prep. Lastly if you think government debt should be dealt with do you really think this is the best way of going about it?
You're missing the point and thus your analogy is no longer an analogy. And, no, creditors will not indefinitely extend you credit to keep you from defaulting. If they did, no one would ever default. Your obligation to pay your mortgage is not an obligation on anyone else to enable you to do so. Once you are out of money or credit, you default. That's it. This is the situation the government is in: if it does not enact a law to authorize the treasury to pay out more money, then it will not meet its obligations. "Not meeting its obligations" and "questioning the public debt" are not the same thing, which is the core of the original argument. "Obligations" do not carry with them the necessity that Congress will allot the money to meet them.
Hey let me burn down your House. No. Let me burn down your Car. No. How about one room in your house let me burn that. NO! Well we tried to negotiate you're being unreasonable.
@Paladin, long term, I have to pay-off the mortgage. That doesn't mean I should go in to default due to a short term cash flow issue. You and some members of Congress are playing fast and loose with the difference in short and long term debt. If the debt is too large in the long term, let's fix it. But by defaulting in the short term, we only make it harder to fix the real problem.
The US has credit available. They have so much credit available that people are actually PAYING the government to take the money. That isn't even a question. The question is whether or not the laws allowing the government to artificially limit it's ability to pay it's debts are constitutional due to the 14th. I and others think that if there is a show down the law artificially limiting our ability to borrow to pay our debts loses out to the 14th. If it wouldn't damage the markets simply b/c it was a stark reminder that with the gerrymandered R majority in the House not even the most basic functions of governance can take place, I'd support the President doing it on general principle. It's fucking retarded to divorce spending from paying for spending. If the Congress authorizes spending it should be automatic that they authorize the mechanism to pay for that spending. The only reason it's never come up is that no party has been so reckless as to actually try and press the issue. Never before has one party threatened economic catastrophe in order to extort policy concessions they couldn't get through regular channels.
"Not meeting its obligations" can mean "questioning the public debt" but doesn't necessarily mean the same thing. It is certainly possible for the government to run out of cash on hand to meet its obligation to pay public debt. Then what?
The Republicans have taken hostages and are demanding a negotiation and throwing a hissy fit and stomping their feet when the adults tell them that there will be negotiations. No there have been no negotiations, but that doesn't mean the Republicans aren't trying to extort them.
In our current political situation, there are alternatives to default. The problem isn't really the debt. It's Obamacare. It's REALLY unpopular with a large portion of the electorate, so (IMHO) the Republicans have the support to make a stand on it. Obama and the Senate need to come to the table and negotiate. There are ways to avoid a default, but not if the Democrats hold to the "NO NEGOTIATION ON OBAMACARE" line.
The treasury is authorized to pay debts until the debt ceiling is reached. Debt is what happens when the treasury writes a check for money it doesn't actually have. If it doesn't pay an obligation because the debt ceiling has been reached, that obligation never becomes a debt.
Like it or not, the Republicans have the power in the House to do this. The House has passed a bill and the Senate refuses to take it up. The Democrats are now whining because Republicans won't fund a massive government program that got no Republican support whatsoever. It's time to pay the piper for that. There are going to be negotiations over Obamacare.
Issued Bonds are already authorized debt though, if the Treasury doesn't have cash on hand to pay them...
No they don't. Like you they are ignoring the crosstabs of the polls. About one fifth of those who don't like Obamacare don't like it b/c they support the public option or full socialized medicine. That doesn't mean they support going back to the old system, or whatever the Republicans would replace it with. More Americans either support Obamacare or wish it went further than dislike it. A VAST MAJORITY, over 2/3rds don't want a government shutdown, much less default over Obamacare.
The ACA was passed legally, confirmed by the SCOTUS, and is the law of the land. The President's job is to execute the law of the land. It is the role of Congress to pay for the laws it passes. The gerrymandered house can throw a tantrum if it wants, but the fact of the matter is they need to do their job, which is funding the government at levels required to execute the laws they've already passed. If they don't like ACA, they are welcome to repeal it.
I thought it was always said that Congress had the "power of the purse" in regards to deciding to fund or not fund things they do not agree with. You are making a "settled law" argument that is basically because it was voted on and passed then it should be inviolate forever and ever.
The question ISN'T whether there is credit available. The question is whether Congress allows the government to borrow more money. I don't think you'll find much legal support for that position. And bringing such a radically novel interpretation into play invites a Constitutional crisis. Write your Congressman. It takes two to NOT negotiate. You can't refuse to negotiate and then blame the other side for the consequences of it.
There were over a dozen chances for budget negotiations that Republicans refused to participate in before they took hostages, how does the right keep forgetting this? There will never been negotiations over the Affordable Care Act as long as Obama is President. It's not only his signature domestic achievement, the Supreme Court and the electorate have already weighed in on it and Republicans lost both. It's the height of idiocy to think the President will willingly undo that now.
