This is an excerpt from the 14th amendment to the US Constitution. It deals with the public debt.
Section 4. 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.
There is a lot of legal discussion and court opinions about
the intended meaning of this section of the amendment. But look very closely at the yellow highlighted
portion. Note the phrase “for payment of
pensions”. That includes your Social
Security and your military retirement pay.
That’s what those are:
pensions. It says these will
be paid, yet the negotiations are about
cutting them, among other things.
So you, the
public out there, had better be paying
attention to this.
Note also how the sentence begins, and ends:
“The validity of the public debt of the United States …..shall not be
questioned”. The clear implication of
that is “we will pay our debts”.
Period. No question about
that.
Note also the phrase “authorized by law”, which means so very clearly that these public
debts were previously agreed-to, and
appropriated by, Congress, the legislative body that makes law.
I’m no lawyer, just a
layman with a logically-trained mind.
To me, what the wording of that
amendment says is that the time to argue about spending cuts is before you
vote to spend it, not after. The amendment says we will pay our legally-incurred
bills, and according to the
Constitution, it is Congress that does
the paying.
To me, this also says
the Congressional act instituting a “debt ceiling” is unconstitutional. Arguing over whether to pay an authorized debt,
is not in accord with the amendment. Period.
The debt ceiling is merely a dodge for the minority party to
get its way with regard to spending cuts,
when it did not have the votes to pass those cuts at the time the spending
was being budgeted. This is playing
politics instead of doing the people’s business properly, which is what they swore to do in their oaths
of office.
My final opinions:
Oath-breaking should be a felony crime. It harms the entire country.
There should be no debt ceiling to argue about. It’s unconstitutional.
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Update 5-24-2023: A version of this was published today as a column in the Waco Tribune-Herald.
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Update 5-30-2023: So, Biden and McCarthy reached a deal. Doesn't say much for the negotiator teams they appointed, does it? But now there is a deal with which both the far right-wing extremists of the GOP and the progressive wing of the Democrats are unhappy. That says what's in the deal is probably just about right.
Now the trick is to get this voted up in Congress, and to Biden for signature, before it is too late. Arguing over bills to pay from things already previously approved for spending, what a ridiculous charade!
This debt ceiling BS is a process by which the party out of power can extort what it wants when it didn't have to votes to get it in the first place. I would also point out that only the GOP has used this against Democrat presidents. Democrats have never done this to GOP presidents. That should tell you something about miss-prioritizing party advantage over the good of the country.
Playing power politics with people's livelihoods and lives, and the economies of the nation and ultimately the world, is just egregious oath-breaking. They swore to do the people's business properly. This is very most definitely NOT the proper way to do it!
We are about to see another charade take place in the House, since there are two, not one, Republican parties: the extremists, and the rest. We are about to see whether the extremists outnumber the rest, and just how badly they have cowed the rest.
The clear and present danger here is that the extremists really don't care about people or the economy, they just want to tear everything down. And they have brainwashed their voters into thinking that is a good thing, instead of the evil that leads to dictatorship.
We will probably also see McCarthy lose the speakership in the next several weeks. The extremists in the GOP really don't like him, he's not one of them. He just panders to whomever is loudest at the moment (which is how he got the speakership in the first place, remember?) Which behavior is definitely NOT doing the people's business! And for that moral failing, good riddance.
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Update 6-2-2023: So, between the House and the Senate, they passed the debt ceiling bill just in time, which despite all the public drama, was probably the real plan all along. The country avoided default, but greatly alarmed all the financial and credit people, which may drive up interest charged for loans to the government anyway, making the budget deficit problem even worse.
And the Republicans got some spending cuts that they didn't have the votes to get, when the spending was originally appropriated. This brinkmanship extortion is NOT the way to do the people's business! I say do away with the debt ceiling. Its abuse has been mostly one-sided by the GOP anyway.
Neither party has ever had the right approach to financial policy all by itself. And after the extremists took control of the GOP, they most certainly have not had the right approach. The extremists have driven out most of "real" conservatives, replacing them with "culture war" demagogues instead of policy proposals. (This descent into idiocy began decades ago.)
What you really do is balance the budget, and sock-away the surpluses, during the good times. You will need those surpluses during the bad times, when government must deficit-spend like crazy, because no one else will spend at all.
If no one spends, the economy grinds to a complete halt, just like at the start of the Great Depression in 1929. The surpluses to spend in bad times helps you keep the accumulating deficit-induced debt under better control.
And, whether times are good or bad are almost entirely NOT within the power of government to control! Most of that is corporate misbehavior, which unfortunately is largely inappropriately, or in some areas entirely-not, regulated (a failing of Congress). The lag time for policies to show effects is actually a bit longer than a Presidential term in office. The US economy is a gigantic thing. It takes the dead dinosaur about 5-6 years, just to fall over.
All I can say is stop re-electing these clowns! See beyond the propaganda and lies. Vote for the "other guys" instead. You cannot do worse than what we have. You might do better. Simple as that.
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