(Just because I’ve been sick as a damn dog this week doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention.) Things have heated up on the debt ceiling “crisis” since this past Monday, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent a letter to Speaker In Name Only Kevin McCarthy, warning that the debt ceiling armageddon may be only a month away.
Biden should either mint the quadrillion-dollar coin or declare that under the 14th Amendment, the government will pay its debts and anyone who opposes it is guilty, as the framers of that amendment believed, of treason. Simple.
Negotiation only give them undeserved legitimacy. It’s time to just take care of businesses and let the Republicans form their own circular firing squad.
Karen!! I've been meaning to explain my new avatar. it's actually sort of a joke. those two terrifying, possibly rabid fighting dogs are actually Meg and Jo, a few months after I rescued them (in August, 2000) after there was concern in the Rescue Group that they'd been feral too long because no one could figure out how long they'd been on their own. they were mother and daughter (Rochelle named them for the March sisters whose personalities their personalities most resembled) and adored each other...this was just how they looked when they were playing rough. it ALWAYS makes me laugh because this was nothing like the way they actually were. I'd sit on the sofa with one of them on each side of me and feel like an Egyptian pharaoh or something
That’s a great story David. My two dogs, Ray and Natalie, in my avatar played the same way. With teeth baring and growling. But they loved each other. Ray only had 3 legs and Natalie was always very respectful and careful with him as he could tip over more easily. I miss them a lot.
There is a positive wagon-load of crap the government struggles with that is not in the Constitution and should be jettisoned ASAP, and the debt ceiling is one of these. It is long past its usefulness and now used as a cudgel to beat up the administration, and I'd love to find a way to wrap it around the Republicans' necks and ride to victory in 2024, but the gullibility of too many low-information voters makes this a risky enterprise. I like Robert Reich's approach - declare the debt limit unconstitutional and press on. We will have to raise taxes eventually to help pay down the debt anyway, but we have to last long enough to get to that point. The Fed is on our side in this.....let's go, Brandon!
Messaging is key in this matter and so is forceful delivery, the kind that denies the entire notion of negotiation. Kevin needs to take some knocks from the Dems as well as the lunatic fringe of his party. Fourteenth Amendment requires Congress to pay the bills. The GOP want the US to become a deadbeat nation.
'So far, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has rejected the idea, warning that the Fed might not accept the coin and that, in her view, the central bank is not legally obligated to accept it.'
'There are other ideas floating around, but the one thing they all have in common is that they rely on the Federal Reserve’s cooperation and its willingness to continue acting as the government’s “fiscal agent” — essentially its banker, a role established by the Fed’s statute.'
'If Jerome Powell will buy Treasury securities in the face of government default, he will almost certainly fulfill the Federal Reserve’s legal responsibilities as a fiscal agent.'
'Under one scenario, for instance, if the Treasury Department decided to switch to issuing low face value, high coupon bonds, the Federal Reserve would have to facilitate the creation of such bonds in their book entry system, facilitate their sale and make periodic interest payments on Treasury’s behalf.'
'Alternatively, if the Biden administration decided to declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional, or made other similar maneuvers, the Fed would again have to facilitate auctions of securities and defer to Treasury legal interpretation. In this sense, the platinum coin option is the most straightforward one since it draws on the Federal Reserve’s most basic “fiscal agent” responsibilities — accepting deposits.
Naturally then, the conversation around unilateral White House options has come to focus on the Federal Reserve and Chair Jerome Powell. When asked in February whether he’d follow Treasury’s direction in issuing payments amid a debt ceiling crisis, Powell dodged, cryptically stating “In terms of our relationship with the Treasury, we are their fiscal agent. And I’m just going to leave it at that.”
In fact, in a largely overlooked episode from the recent past, Powell already showed he’d be willing to do whatever it takes to avoid the catastrophic consequences of federal default. To truly understand what Powell’s Fed is prepared to do, go back to what he said when he was a Fed governor during 2013’s debt ceiling crisis.'
'Powell’s willingness to purchase defaulted Treasury securities — however “loathsome” he finds it — casts the entire debate over bypassing Congress on the debt ceiling in a new light. No option under discussion is more extreme, from the Federal Reserve’s point of view, than stepping in and buying compromised securities of uncertain underlying value. If Powell will buy Treasury securities in the face of government default, he will almost certainly fulfill the Federal Reserve’s legal responsibilities as a fiscal agent and allow the Treasury Department to avoid government default in the first place.'
'In fact, Powell’s comments on disclosure in this meeting are especially revealing in that they signal he won’t be more forthright about what he will do in public until the last minute:
MR. POWELL: As a policy matter, yes. I wonder, on a number of grounds, whether it is wise for us to be disclosing the things we will and won’t do right now, a month and a half before the next debt ceiling crisis. It seems to me you could argue—and I’d like to hear, obviously, what others think—that the very thought that we actually countenance a debt default would be destabilizing. You can also argue that—here is your game plan—if it actually looks like a good game plan, then it will make it less likely that the Congress will feel enough pressure to actually raise the ceiling. I do think that the right time to be making disclosures is before a default; you don’t wait until after a default.'
'In short, not only will Powell likely not interfere with any of the White House’s options to make an end run around the debt ceiling, his deflection on how he would respond to the Biden administration is consistent with what he said privately back in 2013.' (Politico) See link below.
I thought this to be the clearest piece I've read on the options available to solve the debt ceiling crisis and steamroll the demons in the house. Your reply appears to affirm the importance of Powell's role in this. I 'like' ❤️ my comment for the strength of NATHAN TANKUS' piece and happy that a couple of other readers agree!
After a day power washing yellow gunk I finally got to sit down and read this. Thank you. I was laughing my a** off and reading it out loud. The GOP is officially The Confederate Party. Hope you feel great tomorrow!
Paxlovid is a great drug if your not taking a contraindicated drug with it. So glad it’s helping you TC.
My Advair is a black box with Paxlovid, something neither my doctor or pharmacist caught. So I ended up in the ER with critically low sodium and was admitted for 6 awful days. Check all new meds before beginning for any contraindications. Live and learn.
do you vary your tamsulosin with finasteride (I get the finasteride in the morning and the tamsulosin before I sleep). I'm not sure the combination works any better than the finasteride by itself, but without it, I'm doomed to standing there, singing stuff like "Stardust" until things start to happen, which can make me feel very unwelcome if it's a mad intermission dash or something like that...
my understanding is that tamsulosin just acts as a vasodilator, so it's useful for other things. my assumption, of course, is that you don't have a prostate gland.
at this point, it feels like you're not missing a whole lot...
Nope no prostate gland! Only have one kidney (other removed 20+ years ago) - I think the drug is so my "bladder doesnt work too hard"! Aint life grand?
TC, if you haven't been taking big doses of vitamin D, you should start now. The immune system is not running on all four cylinders when one has a deficiency of D.
If you get high sun most days--which is possible in LA but not in Mass--you may be sufficient, in which case you shoiuld get your level taken. You want >40ng/ml. If you're not getting the sun, you can get there by taking... well, I take 5000 IU 4x/week, I weigh 135-140. If you're heavier, you probably need more. Once you start, after you've been taking it 6-8 weeks, get your level taken.
High sun = high enough that your shadow is longer than you are. If the sun is lower than that, the relevant rays are being filtered out by the atmosphere.
I've been taking D since '04. I've had 2-3 very minor flus, one fairly major cold, and maybe 1-2 very minor colds, and that's the extent of it. My siblings take similar amounts of D. None of the three of us has gotten COVID. My brother had his titer of covid antibodies taken, and it was higher than can be measured (>150). I haven't done that, nor has our sister. Who probably got a moderate amount of exposure vaccinating people early in the pandemic.
I'm not a religious person, but I hope and pray with everything I've got that you are right about what President Biden is going to do. I would purely love to see those treasonous morons of 'the New Confederate Party' hoist with their own petard and blown right out of the water into such tiny shreds that they will never be able to organize a rebellion again. And this time, let's do a Reconstruction of the South that sticks.
A delightful American fever-dream, Tom. Here's hoping it is truly prescient and that the Unwily Coyote party craters in an undeniably spectacular and highly visisible fashion which can not be reported in any form of "both sided" commentary.
Also, glad to note that the recent malaise has had no lasting detrimental effect upon your bile duct or spleen.
Never know what you believe, TC. Way too circumspect for the House of Clowns to grasp. And, sadly most of those out in normal-land who think that if the Republicans want to negotiate on how many forks to have at the table, the Democrats must be good-guys and in the spirit of bi-partisanship sit down an be amenable to nonsense. Whereas, the members of the Republican caucus are actually after the salad and protein already ordered and being delivered to Americans. I still have a problem with Obama's concession to John Boehner in 2011, making temporary tax cuts for the superrich permanent. His biggest mistake as all of the other stuff that ended up not getting accomplished came because Obama gave one to get ... well, nothing.
From LAWRENCE TRIBE'S OPINION about the 'DEBT LIMIT' in The New York Times today:
'Section 4 of the 14th Amendment says the “validity” of the public debt “shall not be questioned” — ever. Proponents of the unconstitutionality argument say that when Congress enacted the debt limit, effectively forcing the United States to stop borrowing to honor its debts when that limit was reached, it built a violation of that constitutional command into our fiscal structure, and that as a result, that limit and all that followed are invalid.'
'I’ve never agreed with that argument. It raises thorny questions about the appropriate way to interpret the text: Does Section 4, read properly, prohibit anything beyond putting the federal government into default? If so, which actions does it forbid? And, most important, could this interpretation open the door for dangerous presidential overreach, if Section 4 empowers the president single-handedly to declare laws he dislikes unconstitutional?''
'I still worry about those questions. But I’ve come to believe that they are the wrong ones for us to be asking. While teaching constitutional law, I often explored the problem of bloated presidential power, the puzzle of preserving the rule of law in the face of unprecedented pressures, and the paradox of having to choose among a set of indisputably bad options. During my last semester teaching, with Covid forcing my seminars from the classroom to the video screen, I studied the most insightful literature on the debt ceiling and concluded that we need to reframe the argument.'
'The question isn’t whether the president can tear up the debt limit statute to ensure that the Treasury Department can continue paying bills submitted by veterans’ hospitals or military contractors or even pension funds that purchased government bonds.'
'The question isn’t whether the president can in effect become a one-person Supreme Court, striking down laws passed by Congress.'
'The right question is whether Congress — after passing the spending bills that created these debts in the first place — can invoke an arbitrary dollar limit to force the president and his administration to do its bidding.'
'There is only one right answer to that question, and it is no.'
'And there is only one person with the power to give Congress that answer: the president of the United States. As a practical matter, what that means is this: Mr. Biden must tell Congress in no uncertain terms — and as soon as possible, before it’s too late to avert a financial crisis — that the United States will pay all its bills as they come due, even if the Treasury Department must borrow more than Congress has said it can.'
'The president should remind Congress and the nation, “I’m bound by my oath to preserve and protect the Constitution to prevent the country from defaulting on its debts for the first time in our entire history.” Above all, the president should say with clarity, “My duty faithfully to execute the laws extends to all the spending laws Congress has enacted, laws that bind whoever sits in this office — laws that Congress enacted without worrying about the statute capping the amount we can borrow.”
'By taking that position, the president would not be usurping Congress’s lawmaking power or its power of the purse. Nor would he be usurping the Supreme Court’s power to “say what the law is,” as Chief Justice John Marshall once put it. Mr. Biden would simply be doing his duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” even if doing so leaves one law — the borrowing limit first enacted in 1917 — temporarily on the cutting room floor.'
'Ignoring one law in order to uphold every other has compelling historical precedent. It’s precisely what Abraham Lincoln did when he briefly overrode the habeas corpus law in 1861 to save the Union, later saying to Congress, “Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?”
'For a president to pick the lesser of two evils when no other option exists is the essence of constitutional leadership, not the action of a tyrant. And there is no doubt that ignoring the debt ceiling until Congress either raises or abolishes it is a lesser evil than leaving those with lawful claims against the Treasury out in the cold.' Sorry, gifting option not available. See link below.
MaryPat, you are a revelation. I did not think for a moment that anyone would see that outstanding Opinion by Tribe, unlike what anyone else was likely to think of, and then there was YOU! Salud, special friend🌿
Biden should either mint the quadrillion-dollar coin or declare that under the 14th Amendment, the government will pay its debts and anyone who opposes it is guilty, as the framers of that amendment believed, of treason. Simple.
I like Robert Reich’s solution. Ignore the whole charade and declare the debt must be paid under the 14th Amendment:
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/advice-to-biden-on-how-to-handle?r=6alup&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Negotiation only give them undeserved legitimacy. It’s time to just take care of businesses and let the Republicans form their own circular firing squad.
I completely agree Diane.
Karen!! I've been meaning to explain my new avatar. it's actually sort of a joke. those two terrifying, possibly rabid fighting dogs are actually Meg and Jo, a few months after I rescued them (in August, 2000) after there was concern in the Rescue Group that they'd been feral too long because no one could figure out how long they'd been on their own. they were mother and daughter (Rochelle named them for the March sisters whose personalities their personalities most resembled) and adored each other...this was just how they looked when they were playing rough. it ALWAYS makes me laugh because this was nothing like the way they actually were. I'd sit on the sofa with one of them on each side of me and feel like an Egyptian pharaoh or something
That’s a great story David. My two dogs, Ray and Natalie, in my avatar played the same way. With teeth baring and growling. But they loved each other. Ray only had 3 legs and Natalie was always very respectful and careful with him as he could tip over more easily. I miss them a lot.
I miss them all, all the time.
Yes. The 14th has the advantage of not having bonds or platinum coins festering forever, and the debt limit remaining a never resolved talking point.
There is a positive wagon-load of crap the government struggles with that is not in the Constitution and should be jettisoned ASAP, and the debt ceiling is one of these. It is long past its usefulness and now used as a cudgel to beat up the administration, and I'd love to find a way to wrap it around the Republicans' necks and ride to victory in 2024, but the gullibility of too many low-information voters makes this a risky enterprise. I like Robert Reich's approach - declare the debt limit unconstitutional and press on. We will have to raise taxes eventually to help pay down the debt anyway, but we have to last long enough to get to that point. The Fed is on our side in this.....let's go, Brandon!
So sorry you have been sick, but relieved by what you have said here. Thank you for soldiering on!
Messaging is key in this matter and so is forceful delivery, the kind that denies the entire notion of negotiation. Kevin needs to take some knocks from the Dems as well as the lunatic fringe of his party. Fourteenth Amendment requires Congress to pay the bills. The GOP want the US to become a deadbeat nation.
'So far, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has rejected the idea, warning that the Fed might not accept the coin and that, in her view, the central bank is not legally obligated to accept it.'
'There are other ideas floating around, but the one thing they all have in common is that they rely on the Federal Reserve’s cooperation and its willingness to continue acting as the government’s “fiscal agent” — essentially its banker, a role established by the Fed’s statute.'
'If Jerome Powell will buy Treasury securities in the face of government default, he will almost certainly fulfill the Federal Reserve’s legal responsibilities as a fiscal agent.'
'Under one scenario, for instance, if the Treasury Department decided to switch to issuing low face value, high coupon bonds, the Federal Reserve would have to facilitate the creation of such bonds in their book entry system, facilitate their sale and make periodic interest payments on Treasury’s behalf.'
'Alternatively, if the Biden administration decided to declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional, or made other similar maneuvers, the Fed would again have to facilitate auctions of securities and defer to Treasury legal interpretation. In this sense, the platinum coin option is the most straightforward one since it draws on the Federal Reserve’s most basic “fiscal agent” responsibilities — accepting deposits.
Naturally then, the conversation around unilateral White House options has come to focus on the Federal Reserve and Chair Jerome Powell. When asked in February whether he’d follow Treasury’s direction in issuing payments amid a debt ceiling crisis, Powell dodged, cryptically stating “In terms of our relationship with the Treasury, we are their fiscal agent. And I’m just going to leave it at that.”
In fact, in a largely overlooked episode from the recent past, Powell already showed he’d be willing to do whatever it takes to avoid the catastrophic consequences of federal default. To truly understand what Powell’s Fed is prepared to do, go back to what he said when he was a Fed governor during 2013’s debt ceiling crisis.'
'Powell’s willingness to purchase defaulted Treasury securities — however “loathsome” he finds it — casts the entire debate over bypassing Congress on the debt ceiling in a new light. No option under discussion is more extreme, from the Federal Reserve’s point of view, than stepping in and buying compromised securities of uncertain underlying value. If Powell will buy Treasury securities in the face of government default, he will almost certainly fulfill the Federal Reserve’s legal responsibilities as a fiscal agent and allow the Treasury Department to avoid government default in the first place.'
'In fact, Powell’s comments on disclosure in this meeting are especially revealing in that they signal he won’t be more forthright about what he will do in public until the last minute:
MR. POWELL: As a policy matter, yes. I wonder, on a number of grounds, whether it is wise for us to be disclosing the things we will and won’t do right now, a month and a half before the next debt ceiling crisis. It seems to me you could argue—and I’d like to hear, obviously, what others think—that the very thought that we actually countenance a debt default would be destabilizing. You can also argue that—here is your game plan—if it actually looks like a good game plan, then it will make it less likely that the Congress will feel enough pressure to actually raise the ceiling. I do think that the right time to be making disclosures is before a default; you don’t wait until after a default.'
'In short, not only will Powell likely not interfere with any of the White House’s options to make an end run around the debt ceiling, his deflection on how he would respond to the Biden administration is consistent with what he said privately back in 2013.' (Politico) See link below.
Any thoughts about this, TC?
(Please let us know how you're feeling.)
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/19/powell-debt-ceiling-fed-00092522
Powell will go along with what Biden decides.
I thought this to be the clearest piece I've read on the options available to solve the debt ceiling crisis and steamroll the demons in the house. Your reply appears to affirm the importance of Powell's role in this. I 'like' ❤️ my comment for the strength of NATHAN TANKUS' piece and happy that a couple of other readers agree!
Thank you, maestro.
Why is invoking The Fourteenth Amendment prohibition against questioning the national debt a radical change in the way things are done?
"Pulling the rug out from under Quiverin’ Qevin and declaring the New Confederacy irrelevant will be dangerous, but it will be worth it.
And then wrap the blame for having to do what was done around their necks and strangle them with it in 2024."
Sounds like a plan.
Feel better soon, Tom.
After a day power washing yellow gunk I finally got to sit down and read this. Thank you. I was laughing my a** off and reading it out loud. The GOP is officially The Confederate Party. Hope you feel great tomorrow!
I'm now taking Paxlovid, which after two doses today is knocking me on my ass in a good way.
Paxlovid is a great drug if your not taking a contraindicated drug with it. So glad it’s helping you TC.
My Advair is a black box with Paxlovid, something neither my doctor or pharmacist caught. So I ended up in the ER with critically low sodium and was admitted for 6 awful days. Check all new meds before beginning for any contraindications. Live and learn.
Yeah, they warned me not to take the Tamsulosin I do for prostate while taking this. The only drug I take that is contra-indicated.
do you vary your tamsulosin with finasteride (I get the finasteride in the morning and the tamsulosin before I sleep). I'm not sure the combination works any better than the finasteride by itself, but without it, I'm doomed to standing there, singing stuff like "Stardust" until things start to happen, which can make me feel very unwelcome if it's a mad intermission dash or something like that...
Yeah, I take both. Although mine is called Dutasteride with the Tamsulosin. And yes to all the rest you mention. Growin' old ain't for sissies.
sure ain't.
well THATS interesting! I take Tamsulosin - fortunately havent had to take any other drugs etc since I started it. Good to know, tho.
my understanding is that tamsulosin just acts as a vasodilator, so it's useful for other things. my assumption, of course, is that you don't have a prostate gland.
at this point, it feels like you're not missing a whole lot...
I have one.
Nope no prostate gland! Only have one kidney (other removed 20+ years ago) - I think the drug is so my "bladder doesnt work too hard"! Aint life grand?
❤️👏🍾
TC, if you haven't been taking big doses of vitamin D, you should start now. The immune system is not running on all four cylinders when one has a deficiency of D.
If you get high sun most days--which is possible in LA but not in Mass--you may be sufficient, in which case you shoiuld get your level taken. You want >40ng/ml. If you're not getting the sun, you can get there by taking... well, I take 5000 IU 4x/week, I weigh 135-140. If you're heavier, you probably need more. Once you start, after you've been taking it 6-8 weeks, get your level taken.
High sun = high enough that your shadow is longer than you are. If the sun is lower than that, the relevant rays are being filtered out by the atmosphere.
I've been taking D since '04. I've had 2-3 very minor flus, one fairly major cold, and maybe 1-2 very minor colds, and that's the extent of it. My siblings take similar amounts of D. None of the three of us has gotten COVID. My brother had his titer of covid antibodies taken, and it was higher than can be measured (>150). I haven't done that, nor has our sister. Who probably got a moderate amount of exposure vaccinating people early in the pandemic.
I already do that.
I'm not a religious person, but I hope and pray with everything I've got that you are right about what President Biden is going to do. I would purely love to see those treasonous morons of 'the New Confederate Party' hoist with their own petard and blown right out of the water into such tiny shreds that they will never be able to organize a rebellion again. And this time, let's do a Reconstruction of the South that sticks.
At this point, it’s the republicans who won’t get out of the way of a functioning government. Screw those DINOs
TC, maybe you were ..."sick as a damn dog this week," but you were on fire when you wrote this.
Buckle up people; this is going to be one hell of a ride.
A delightful American fever-dream, Tom. Here's hoping it is truly prescient and that the Unwily Coyote party craters in an undeniably spectacular and highly visisible fashion which can not be reported in any form of "both sided" commentary.
Also, glad to note that the recent malaise has had no lasting detrimental effect upon your bile duct or spleen.
;-)
Never know what you believe, TC. Way too circumspect for the House of Clowns to grasp. And, sadly most of those out in normal-land who think that if the Republicans want to negotiate on how many forks to have at the table, the Democrats must be good-guys and in the spirit of bi-partisanship sit down an be amenable to nonsense. Whereas, the members of the Republican caucus are actually after the salad and protein already ordered and being delivered to Americans. I still have a problem with Obama's concession to John Boehner in 2011, making temporary tax cuts for the superrich permanent. His biggest mistake as all of the other stuff that ended up not getting accomplished came because Obama gave one to get ... well, nothing.
Obama learned too late, Joe learned in time…
From LAWRENCE TRIBE'S OPINION about the 'DEBT LIMIT' in The New York Times today:
'Section 4 of the 14th Amendment says the “validity” of the public debt “shall not be questioned” — ever. Proponents of the unconstitutionality argument say that when Congress enacted the debt limit, effectively forcing the United States to stop borrowing to honor its debts when that limit was reached, it built a violation of that constitutional command into our fiscal structure, and that as a result, that limit and all that followed are invalid.'
'I’ve never agreed with that argument. It raises thorny questions about the appropriate way to interpret the text: Does Section 4, read properly, prohibit anything beyond putting the federal government into default? If so, which actions does it forbid? And, most important, could this interpretation open the door for dangerous presidential overreach, if Section 4 empowers the president single-handedly to declare laws he dislikes unconstitutional?''
'I still worry about those questions. But I’ve come to believe that they are the wrong ones for us to be asking. While teaching constitutional law, I often explored the problem of bloated presidential power, the puzzle of preserving the rule of law in the face of unprecedented pressures, and the paradox of having to choose among a set of indisputably bad options. During my last semester teaching, with Covid forcing my seminars from the classroom to the video screen, I studied the most insightful literature on the debt ceiling and concluded that we need to reframe the argument.'
'The question isn’t whether the president can tear up the debt limit statute to ensure that the Treasury Department can continue paying bills submitted by veterans’ hospitals or military contractors or even pension funds that purchased government bonds.'
'The question isn’t whether the president can in effect become a one-person Supreme Court, striking down laws passed by Congress.'
'The right question is whether Congress — after passing the spending bills that created these debts in the first place — can invoke an arbitrary dollar limit to force the president and his administration to do its bidding.'
'There is only one right answer to that question, and it is no.'
'And there is only one person with the power to give Congress that answer: the president of the United States. As a practical matter, what that means is this: Mr. Biden must tell Congress in no uncertain terms — and as soon as possible, before it’s too late to avert a financial crisis — that the United States will pay all its bills as they come due, even if the Treasury Department must borrow more than Congress has said it can.'
'The president should remind Congress and the nation, “I’m bound by my oath to preserve and protect the Constitution to prevent the country from defaulting on its debts for the first time in our entire history.” Above all, the president should say with clarity, “My duty faithfully to execute the laws extends to all the spending laws Congress has enacted, laws that bind whoever sits in this office — laws that Congress enacted without worrying about the statute capping the amount we can borrow.”
'By taking that position, the president would not be usurping Congress’s lawmaking power or its power of the purse. Nor would he be usurping the Supreme Court’s power to “say what the law is,” as Chief Justice John Marshall once put it. Mr. Biden would simply be doing his duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” even if doing so leaves one law — the borrowing limit first enacted in 1917 — temporarily on the cutting room floor.'
'Ignoring one law in order to uphold every other has compelling historical precedent. It’s precisely what Abraham Lincoln did when he briefly overrode the habeas corpus law in 1861 to save the Union, later saying to Congress, “Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?”
'For a president to pick the lesser of two evils when no other option exists is the essence of constitutional leadership, not the action of a tyrant. And there is no doubt that ignoring the debt ceiling until Congress either raises or abolishes it is a lesser evil than leaving those with lawful claims against the Treasury out in the cold.' Sorry, gifting option not available. See link below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/opinion/debt-limit.html
I haven't seen it put so well by anyone else.
it's funny, I was just about to read the piece myself. now, I can just skim.
THANK YOU FERN!!
MaryPat, you are a revelation. I did not think for a moment that anyone would see that outstanding Opinion by Tribe, unlike what anyone else was likely to think of, and then there was YOU! Salud, special friend🌿
Right back at you Fern! I have been needing a NYT subscriber to unlock this jewel box for me! And Voila`, it is you who has the key! Thanks!
Absolutely sizzlin, TC, sizzlin on the grill to crispy perfection.
Salud
💜