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"14th Amendment: Democratic Senators See Debt Ceiling As Unconstitutional"

How convenient! You know what else they might want to look at as illegal? Failure to pass budgets. But I digress.

Here’s my thinking: what we’ve got working here is essentially a no-limit credit card given to the Executive, whose party has no reason, therefore, to pass a budget, given that they are essentially operating under the conditions of the last budget, passed a couple years back when they had a supermajority — one that incorporated “one-time” “stimulus” money of a trillion dollars that is now, mind you, part of a new baseline for spending (and can’t be touched, lest the weather service shut down and veterans lose their benefits, not to mention what happens to women, minorities, and the poor little autistic kids) — leaving the President free to keep spending until the whole thing implodes, because the Constitution renders a debt ceiling unconstitutional.

— Which, if that’s the case, why not just stop pretending and make the President a king? Then we can finish this whole surreal adventure off by concluding, by way of left-liberal legal thinking, that the Constitution, a document designed specifically to constrain the powers of a centralized authority and protect individual liberty while empowering the states, gives the federal government, via the Commerce Clause, authority to regulate the activity and the inactivity of Americans to the point that they can be directed to buy products, and are thus in essence owned by the State; while the 14th Amendment gives the government the powers to spend and borrow money we don’t have and can’t conceivably repay without limits, until the whole enterprise simply collapses from the weight of the debt, or even of the servicing of the debt.

That is to say, according to left-liberal legal thinking — and thanks to a series of “textualist” rulings — the Constitution, we’re forced to conclude, was written to deconstruct upon itself, with the framer’s intent to keep power dispersed throughout the states and out of the hands of a powerful centralized authority (having just fought a revolution to free themselves from such an arrangement) in essence legally repudiated — by an appeal to their own document — in favor of a reading of the text that gives the federal government the legal power to enslave us, while an unchecked Executive is permitted to spend and borrow the nation to its own demise.

Is that about it?

As the left begins chirping about the “plain text” of the 14th Amendment — and there is no such thing as “plain text” without an appeal to the intent of those who authored and ratified that text, or else “pass the salt” can be met equally with either a handing over of salt or a conscious decision not to touch it — it will be interesting to see how much pushback they receive: after all, the both the “plain text” and the intent of the Commerce Clause, for instance, has been clearly subverted by Wickard; and there are a number of other awful Court rulings, with Hamdan and Kelo being recent examples, that would be well served should we suddenly insist upon interpretative fidelity.

Quips Glenn Reynolds, “I suspect that this approach would give the tax-protest movement a big shot in the arm. Or maybe people will decide we need a Constitutional Convention.”

Glenn is right about the former; but I’m happy with the Constitution we have, so rather than hold a Constitutional Convention, I suspect we’re far more likely to hold a second Civil War.

We weren’t reared in tyranny. Taking us there is going to be more difficult than some clearly believe it will be.

25 Replies to “"14th Amendment: Democratic Senators See Debt Ceiling As Unconstitutional"”

  1. Silver Whistle says:

    It’s enough to make you move to Greece.

  2. sdferr says:

    heh. Are they sure they want to cite a section that includes the following as the very next proposition? I don’t think they’ve really thought this through.

    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.

  3. happyfeet says:

    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.

    my emphasis there

    the people what say a debt limit is unconstitutional are the same ones what can’t find a right to bear arms in the second amendment

  4. Sears Poncho says:

    Funny how they’ve always voted on raising the debt ceiling before. You mean to tell me that legislators have been wasting their time voting on something that is unconstitutional?

  5. Squid says:

    I’m still trying to figure out how you get from “we acknowledge that the national debt is real” to “we acknowledge no limit on the debt we can run up.”

  6. Slartibartfast says:

    That’s a decent point, feets. The 2nd doesn’t say anything close to only a well-regulated militia shall have the right to bear arms, but that’s what gun-rights opponents are trying to make it mean.

  7. Slartibartfast says:

    Silly me. And here I thought that the legislative branch actually passed budget laws, and was permitted to regulate itself in that (as well as other) regard(s).

  8. Squid says:

    Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is “trillion” with a “T.” …

    Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined…

    And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy… Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.

    I don’t remember who said this*, but he made a very good point about the need to rein in federal spending so as not to impoverish future generations of Americans, and he seemed to have a powerful argument for why the debt limit was important, and why it shouldn’t be raised any further.

    “This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy.” It’s not even hidden any more, and I sincerely hope that whoever gave this speech gets a chance to have a heart-to-heart with President Obama.

    * That’s a lie.

  9. geoffb says:

    It’s not Obama’s fault that he is slowly becoming the despot, even if that is what he desired all along. His problem is the system he is entangled in. One which goes back to Nixon, GW Boooooosh! (and Jimmuh C. – hush now).

    By joining George W. Bush in blazing novel legal pathways for super-presidentialism, Obama’s break with the War Powers Act suggests a deeper pathology. There is something wrong with the basic system through which presidents get their legal advice. Without fundamental reform, we can expect repeated scenarios in which top administration lawyers rubber-stamp power-grabs even when they are in blatant violation of fundamental laws.
    […]
    When … the Office of Legal Counsel demonstrates legal integrity, it can be overruled by the politicized White House Counsel’s office; but some of the time, the Justice Department group will find itself so politicized that it will do the president’s bidding on its own. The danger of rubber-stamping is greatest when, as in the war-powers area, the Supreme Court is unlikely to intervene to resolve the key legal issues.

    All of this is just a trap, built by nefarious persons long ago, that he is caught in. He is really just doing the best he can for us all after all.

    Remember the speech about not being “red states and blue states, but being the United States of America?” Well, somewhere between that convention speech in which you leaped from anonymity to fame, you forgot about that line, that great message, and fell into the traps of power—pride, narcissism and arrogance. Your glorious teleprompters from which flow the golden words will not tell you how to fix America. All you know for certain, in your heart as you go to sleep each night is that you have tried everything you thought was right and it didn’t and doesn’t work, and the American people are figuring that out.

    When do we get back to looking at this through the prism of “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism“?

  10. Jeff G. says:

    Sweet! Just wanted to point out my site has fallen about 30K slots on Alexa since two weeks ago. I was at about 40,000 ranking at one point; now I’m 155,000 and climbing.

    The truth sells!

    Oh well. The market speaks. And I’m increasingly becoming one of those crazy dudes shouting on a street corner while people walk by.

    Some days it is difficult to keep going, particularly when you know how many on your own side have had a conscious hand in trying to marginalize you.

  11. Jeff G. says:

    my emphasis there

    A UN guy on my facebook page today told me that the budget is a law and so was duly authorized. I had to remind him we have been operating without an actual budget for quite some time now.

  12. Slartibartfast says:

    *doublefacepalm*

  13. sdferr says:

    We should probably be reading and memorizing heaps of pre-War Lincoln, even if his attempts to avoid the coming clash proved ultimately ineffective. Mostly, I reason, on grounds that of all the thinkers on the question at the time, he seemed to me to have the best sense of how to deal with his opponents in the event he had to kill some of them in light of the fact he’d (and everyone else would) still be living with the survivors after he’d won.

  14. Ella says:

    sdferr, Lincoln was kind of a tyrant who was great at PR.

    JeffG, the truth burns sometimes. Maybe, though, drop-off is due to summer vacations? I’m feeling optimistic. About the web traffic, not the direction of the country. Country direction looks pretty screwy.

  15. sdferr says:

    Pre-War he was a tyrant Ella? How do you work that out?

  16. motionview says:

    Maybe from Alexa, but according to ranking.com, after a huge dropoff after the last election, you are on a slow steady growth path. You have to click on “View Traffic Rank Trend”. They have you at traffic 52,361 but link ranking at 210,429, an indication that you are being read despite not being linked.

    Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not one of those crazy dudes shouting on a street corner while people walk by

  17. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Lincoln was kind of a tyrant who was great at PR.

    Lincoln the “tryrant”, exposed.

  18. Sarah Rolph says:

    Regarding the traffic issue, allow me to demonstrate my firm grasp of the (probably) obvious.

    Your site is a bit counterintuitive, Jeff.

    You are one of the smartest people and one of the best writers in the entire blogosphere, and you take ideas seriously. Very seriously. I LOVE that.

    But someone who stumbled upon the site on a day when you happened to have a wacky post up (Michele Bachmann Wears Army Boots, for example) might not stay long enough to notice your strengths. A lot of the humor is over the top, and there is a lot of bad language. (My other favorite blog right now is Surber’s, where you can’t use the word “bullshit”!)

    So I don’t think it’s surprising that some people would hesitate to link. I probably send less traffic to your blog myself than I would if it didn’t have these quirks.

    I’m not saying you should change anything, but since I respect you so much I wanted to give you my honest perspective, in case it is helpful.

  19. Jeff G. says:

    I responded with a poem using “bullshit” in it before I read your comment, Sarah.

    Serendipity!

  20. The Monster says:

    There is no constitutional requirement that Congress “pass a budget”. The word “budget” doesn’t even appear in the document.

    However, Art. I, §9, ¶7 says

    No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

    So the question is whether actual laws have been passed to appropriate monies to the various purposes for which they are spent, and whether the Treasury is publishing those regular statements.

  21. Jeff G. says:

    Isn’t the “law” the signed budget agreement, Monster?

  22. motionview says:

    Plus it seems like a lot of new commenters.

  23. The Monster says:

    Jeff, a budget agreement passed by Congress and signed by POTUS would be a law. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only kind of law that would satisfy the Constitutional requirement. If Congress votes to appropriate the money, and POTUS signs it, that’s a law, but it doesn’t have to be called a “budget” to be a law.

  24. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Congress can tell me how to spend my money, but Congress can’t tell itself to not borrow more the X dollars? That’s fucked up.

  25. Sarah Rolph says:

    Serendipity! Or even synchronicity!

    Sometimes you’ve just gotta say bullshit.

    However, I have noticed that it’s very effective to use words like baloney for emphasis–“baloney” now being as rare in conversation as “fuck” once was.

    Remember when Biden got frustrated with Palin for saying “doggone it Joe”? I’m tellin’ ya, it’s the new thing.

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