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Perhaps more to the point, Obama doesn't have the legal authority to prioritize certain payments. If he doesn't pay something, then he would be in violation of
by tdees40 13y ago
Perhaps more to the point, Obama doesn't have the legal authority to prioritize certain payments. If he doesn't pay something, then he would be in violation of the law. He can't just unilaterally not pay bills. This isn't some little technical problem, it's a real constraint. If the debt ceiling isn't raised, Obama is both (1) required by law to spend certain monies and (2) not allowed to borrow to spend that money. This could provoke a very real constitutional/legal crisis with no clear resolution.
- fleitz 13y agoIf he is unable to fulfill his obligations as required by law, I guess the only legal option is resignation.
- bilbo0s 13y agoI think that the depth of the hypothetical that tdees postulates has eluded you... it would not be Obama who has a Constitutional/Legal crisis... it would be the United States. It would be, quite literally, US Law mandating the violation of ... US Law.
- fleitz 13y agoWhich the president as head of the executive branch is required to execute.
- bilbo0s 13y agoSigh... OK... let's walk your suggestion through. The President resigns. The Vice-President succeeds. The Vice-President is now the President. Now the NEW President is obliged by US Law... to violate US Law. So we enact your solution again... The NEW President resigns... This time the Speaker succeeds... The Speaker is now the President. Now THAT new President is obliged by US Law... to violate US Law. So we enact your solution again... Do you see the problem yet?
- fleitz 13y agoNot really, eventually you run out of people to execute laws that can't be executed. Eventually the government becomes a laughing stock and folds.
- pyre 13y agoMany people starve to death (among other things) in the ensuing confusion... Either you're very angry at the world, or you're just a troll.
- fleitz 13y agoHave you ever considered that in the last 15 years more people have died as a result of the actions of the US government than are prevented from starving to death by the US government?
- pyre 13y agoIf you want to contribute something constructive to this conversation, then I suggest that you put together some sort of report/study to demonstrate your thought that over the last 15 years more people have died as a result of US government actions than would die in the ensuing chaos around the fall of western civilization.
- jbooth 13y agoIt's been spelled out like 6 times in this thread that this crisis creates contradictory legal obligations for the executive branch that are logically impossible to fulfill. If you're really not understanding that, perhaps you should consider rephrasing your objection as a humble question.
- AnIrishDuck 13y agoAnd then what? The vice president would become the president, and he would have the exact same problem. The executive branch can't just miraculously disappear, even if congress is acting like a schizophrenic moron. The most likely outcome, if the executive branch has no legal course of action, is to choose the "least illegal" course of action [1]. The linked article from the Columbia Law Review has a detailed analysis of the three options. Here's the most plausible picks: - Selective repayment. Pick and choose which payment obligations to discharge. There's obvious political issues here. Who gets paid, and who doesn't? Social security over Medicare? Military contractors over NASA? - Increase taxation without the authorization of congress. Again, many inherently political questions. Who do we increase taxes on? In many ways, this is a mirror image of option #1. - Issue new debt not authorized by congress. The biggest issues here are market factors, not political questions. How will the market react to this unauthorized debt? If it refuses to buy at low interest rates, this option is not likely to solve the underlying problem. Several humerous non-options are also debunked in [1], to illustrate what "more unconstitutional" looks like: - Sell Alaska back to the Russians. Use the proceeds to buy time. - Mint coins, and by fiat appraise them for massive amounts. Sell them to the fed, and pay off the debt with the new funds. Just read the article. It's a bit biased, but its analysis of options appears on the whole quite reasonable (I am not a constitutional scholar). 1. http://www.columbialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Buchanan-Dorf.pdf http://www.columbialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- summerdown2 13y agoCould he effectively write cheques to pay each bill, and watch the cheques bounce when he runs out of money? That way it's not his fault?