That was a moronic plan to use smoke and mirrors to make it appear that the debt was not going past the limits. If that was their serious plan, then they aren’t capable of the responsibilities of governing.
The plan was pretty simple: the government pays its debts if it can’t borrow anymore. It’s probably illegal anyway for the government to default, and Treasury bond holders would probably seek relief in the courts under the 14th amendment.
Bondholders get paid first. That’s the law, and the fact that Democrats disagree with that says that they do intend to default on the debt as soon as it is unavoidable.
As John McEnroe would say, you cannot be serious!
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.
It has to be paid. It would take a constitutional amendment to allow the government to pay for say, food stamps, before interest on the debt.
You can’t pick and choose your obligations. Nothing in this amendment puts foreign bond holders at the top of the food chain. Government contractors, government employees, social security recipients, and Medicare providers all have money that is due them just as any T-bill holder does. If you think we can pay off the interest and screw everyone else, you’re playing with fire.
And so far we have magellan01 saying he likes Romney, giving some reasons, and that’s it (and for that my thanks) and adaher who seems to dislike him but defends him because we don’t like him and he isn’t Obama.
Nobody else seems to like the guy.
Those aren’t debt. Government contractors, that could be debt, if the services have been performed or contracted. But Social Security and Medicare are not debt. Anything that congress can just renounce by simple legislation is not debt. SS and Medicare can be ended by simple majority vote tomorrow. Congress cannot cancel the debt tomorrow by vote.
The debt is the debt. Everything else is spending. The amendment makes an exception for veterans of the Civil War and contractors, but nothing else.
But even if I granted your premise, the government can cover Social Security, Medicare, and the debt. They’d just have to halt discretionary spending and new defense spending.
I like SOME things about Romney, mainly his resume and managerial skills. A lot of people didn’t like Bill Clinton, but still supported him for those same reasons. He was just good at his job. I’m hoping Romney will be as well.
I think you’re drawing distinctions without a difference. If the government commits to spending money, it becomes a debt when it is spent. If you want to guarantee a depression, just stop all government spending.
It’s only a debt if there’s a contract of some sort and Congress can’t legally abrogate it by simple majority vote.
Congress has committed to spending X amount on oceanographic research in 2012. They can choose to not spend another dime tomorrow if they want. Therefore, this spending is not a debt, anymore than your decision to buy beer tomorrow is not “debt”. It’s just spending.
Of course, this concept will be tested in the courts should the administration decide to default instead of paying interest on the debt first. Treasury holders will seek recourse and the courts will decide what is really debt and what is just spending.
Read your link again. You are correct that social security payments are not debt. But payments to soldiers and government workers for past and present work are in fact obligations. That was the point of Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin. The plan was tabled because it wouldn’t work and was wholly inadequate - food for the gulls.
Besides, that’s irrelevant. The tea party maniacs and their congressional cohorts were operating under a regime without such an arrangement- and they made no moves to clarify their intentions. What they did was order the Administration to Spend X, Tax Y and OBTW don’t borrow to cover the difference. To bring up a bill proposed 6 months earlier is just engaging in wishful fantasying.
I agree with that much. If you’re going to appropriate money, you need to allow the means to pay for it. Although the big issue of disagreement was how much to appropriate. The Republicans didn’t want to spend as much as the Democrats did, so they demanded cuts in exchange for increasing the government’s borrowing authority.
And the government can pick and choose what to pay, they just don’t want to. That’s because the people who are most entitled to our money in case of default aren’t the most politically popular people.
When you say “The government” are you referring to the Executive branch? Because if you are, that is not the case. The Executive branch is mandated to spend a certain amount and tax a certain amount. They are also given a debt ceiling. If the legislature breaks the rules arithmetic then… the Executive will do what the Executive will do and there will properly be an appeal to the judicial branch. Because, other than paying interest on the debt and IIRC certain pensions, the constitution is silent on the matter.
More specifics here: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/06/the-debt-ceiling-in-historical-perspective.html Then-Speaker Newt Gingrich provoked a debt ceiling crisis in 1995 by suspending the Gephardt Rule. Between November 15, 1995 and March 29, 1996, Secretary of the Treasury Rubin declared a debt-issuance suspension period …
The general tenor of the discussions that I heard was that:
[INDENT] 1. Raising outré scenarios and possibilities publicly before they became imminent was destructive of market confidence and profoundly unhelpful.
2. Whatever the Treasury did, §4 of the 14th Amendment absolutely, totally, completely prohibited it from ever, ever defaulting on debt it had issued--whether financial markets saw that debt as a high-quality full-faith-and-credit obligation of the United States or not.
3. The Treasury had a legal obligation to pay all of the bills for discretionary and mandatory spending that had been duly authorized by law, and the Treasury had a legal obligation not to issue debt above the limit. What should the Treasury do if these two legal obligations came into conflict? It was not clear. That's why the Gephardt Rule was a good thing.
4. It was much, much better for the country if these two legal obligations never came into conflict: for the Treasury to fail to obey Congress's instructions to spend was bad; for the Treasury to issue debt above the debt ceiling was bad--and such debt would probably not be salable at normal Treasury-bond prices. Every nerve should be strained to keep from going there.
The 1995-1996 crisis was resolved in the winter of 1996 when Secretary Rubin informed Congress that he was going to deal with the situation by not mailing out the March Social Security checks. Gingrich then knuckled under.[/INDENT]
And Rubin’s approach was appropriate. What was not appropriate was for Geithner to say he would default on interest payments.
Oh, I neglected to address this I guess. You may be looking at two different terms and close attention will be needed to distinguish between them. Job growth is not the same as unemployment. A governor that slashes unemployment to zero in the first year of office will have the lowest job growth if the population remains the same for the remainder of their office. Looking at flat employment figures can be misleading due to regional peculiarities. If a state historically had low unemployment and increased to just below the national average, that’d reflect poorly on the governance of that state (negative job growth), barring particulars such as seasonal employment or federal programs which have a disproportionate effect on certain areas. On the other hand, job growth can also be misleading in states which have reached “employment saturation” or where workers are labouring temporarily. Not to mention workers being underpaid or employed in semi-productive labour.
Last I heard, there’s one under construction… I know, I know, equivocation.
Oh, I didn’t see this earlier! You invoked the image of 9/11! You played the Ace Of Trumps! You win! Well done!
I didn’t mention Hitler yet. Saving that for page 8.
Whoops, you just did!
Romney was my 4th choice. But he’s still head and shoulders above Obama. Hell, I’d vote for a conservative one-legged leper over Obama.
You got a problem with lepers?