The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    You can be the first on your block

     

    who knows there is no debt limit problem.  According to  Bruce Bartlett Via Brad Delong

    What Debt Limit? Plan B is the 14th Amendment: I now feel even more strongly that the Fourteenth Amendment trumps the debt limit. .........(see)...........this.... article by George Washington University law professor Michael Abramowicz. Writing in the Tulsa Law Journal (“Beyond Balanced Budgets, Fourteenth Amendment Style,” 33:2, Winter 1997, pp. 561-612), he concludes that any government action “making uncertain whether or not a debt will be honored is unconstitutional.” As Abramowicz explains:

    A debt does not become valid or invalid only at the moment payment is due. A debt’s validity may be assessed at any time, and a debt is valid only if the law provides that it will be honored. Therefore, a requirement that the government not question a debt’s validity does not kick in only once the time comes for the government to make a payment on the debt. Rather, the duty not to question is a continuous one. If as a result of government actions, a debt will not be paid absent future governmental action, that debt is effectively invalid. The high level of generality recognizes that instead of referring to payment of debts, the Clause bans government action at any time that affects the validity of debt instruments…. Moreover, there is no such thing as a valid debt that will nonetheless not be honored.

    This means that the very existence of the debt limit is unconstitutional because it calls into question the validity of the debt. ...............................

    END 

    So that solves that problem !. Send out for more problems

     

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    Comments

    I don't have a lot of faith in this, though.  The debt ceiling prohibits the Treasury from raising new debts.  It makes no statement whatsoever on the validity of the existing debts.  Technically, the Treasury could devote every penny of tax revenue to paying bond claims and thus stave off a default for a considerable amount of time.  This would, of course, destroy the planet.  But it could be done.


    Obama  would   request an opinion  from an administration attorney in a non trivial position whether he is required to take any steps necessary for the country to meet its obligations.. Not just the financial ones. 

    Then direct Geithner to issue more debt.

    Who can stop him?

     

     


    I like it....and I heard it made John Boehner cry.