May have been a parliamentary (or simple vote-counting) issue with including that while using the reconciliation mechanism.
The question is, would Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema gone for that?
The answer is no.
I had started writing a post about how you were wrong and that while Manchin and Sinema may want to stand in the way of large progressive moves, they weren’t so dickish as to oppose something as obviously common sense as keeping the economy from crashing.
Then I read this article, and I have to even further lower my opinion of them and concede the point to you.
I hate to say it, but this is starting to build a compelling case to bring back earmarks. Toss a couple dozen million dollars towards building Joe Manchin International Airport in scenic downtown Charleston and he might abruptly become more amenable to playing along.
I remember hearing exactly this argument from multiple sources a few years ago, all of them claiming that dropping earmarks is one of the primary causes for our current dysfunctional partisan legislature.
The wonky issue with using reconciliation to raise the debt ceiling is that you can’t use reconciliation to suspend it until a certain date (which is how Congress has generally “raised” the debt ceiling). Instead, they would have to raise the debt ceiling to a certain number – e.g. “the Treasury may have outstanding no more than a gazillion dollars in debt.” Politicians are loathe to do that, because it’s a pretty easy attack ad that, “Senator Soandso voted to saddle your children with a gazillion dollars in debt.”
Maybe not the right thread to get into a conversation about earmarks, but I think they’ve lost a lot of their power. Having a reputation for “bringing home the bacon” just isn’t as powerful as it used to be. In 2021, the House passed the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act, which included 400 Republican earmarks. It failed to get a single Republican vote.
Well, the money that bought them does not want to see a default. Regardless of their other political views they tend to put the almighty dollar as #1 on their priority list and a default would cost them billions (collectively).
Heck, even the justices are pretty well off financially. They don’t want it to happen either. It seems the constitution is pretty clear on this too. The proper place for congress to fight over this is when they make the budget each year.
I say Biden should call their bluff and invoke the constitution on this. This brinksmanship is getting dangerous. Time to end it. Waiting for a more liberal and reliable supreme court could take decades we don’t have.
“Or, of course, you can wait until the next Republican President who will, I assume, gladly have the country default on our debt.”
Just saw this:
A sort of interesting aspect of the 14th amendment is that on it’s face it mandates that the President take any means necessary to avoid default no matter how unorthodox.
If the choice ultimately came down to some technically legal gimmick like the platinum coin versus defaulting, the president is apparently mandated to choose the gimmick. And if the choice came down to either stopping a mandatory expense or defaulting, you could make the case he’s mandated to stop the mandatory expense (gets a bit more murky here because the president is also mandated to do what congress orders them to do).
Also my wild guess on what the courts would do if this came up is to rule the whole thing a political question because it would be such a mess both legally and economically to make sens of the situation otherwise. Not worth straight up “invoking” the 14th (i.e. simply continuing to issue bonds and saying the debt ceiling is unconstitutional) IMO - I’m increasingly becoming convinced the best course of action is the trillion dollar coin.
I cant believe NBC said Congress can go home tomorrow without an agreement for the weekend. What a bunch of mamas boys- oh must go home for dinner
I agree but, for some reason, it seems a non-starter:
Everything is “no” until circumstances require a “yes”. I don’t think these sorts of answers mean anything – of course their preference isn’t to use extraordinary measures, because they’ve never been done before. But when it becomes (as is likely, IMO) do something “extraordinary” or default the American economy, then I think it’s very likely they’ll find a way to say “yes” pretty quickly, and justify it by (rightly) saying the alternative is blowing up everything for everyone.
I expect we’ll find out next week.
I mean I would be in favor of basically just minting the coin if it gets to May 28 or 29 and the GOP hasn’t come down to agreeing to raise the debt ceiling with at most some minor face saving concessions, which the Biden administration is evidently very opposed to doing that at the moment. I think they would have to do that or a similar gimmick as a contingency if no deal was agreed upon in congress and they were up against the cliff.
Sadly if current reporting is to be believed it seems like the best the Dems can hope for is that next week there’s some kind of bipartisan agreement to just kick the can 2 weeks and continue negotiating. The Biden administration’s current offer is apparently a spending freeze which is a shocking concession at this stage. If there’s a last minute agreement that actually raises the debt ceiling it will likely be that plus a GOP wish list of work requirements for programs, and it’ll get agreed to by most republicans and enough Dem defectors. That would honestly be a disaster. The only way out at this point for the Dems appears to be trying to crack GOP unity and peel off GOP votes for a more Dem-aligned compromise. Unless Biden is seriously willing to consider something out of the box that could weaken McCarthy’s default threat.
Honest (and likely naive) question: I’ve read that Dems are worried that some of the unorthodox solutions (the 14th Amendment, the trillion dollar coin) wouldn’t survive legal challenges. IANAL, but in order to bring suit against the government, don’t you need to show you were wronged, or harmed, in some way, in order to have standing to sue? Who gets harmed if Biden invokes the 14th Amendment, or the treasury mints a trillion dollar coin? I mean, McCarthy obviously, because he loses his bargaining position, but that doesn’t seem like it meets the requirements to bring legal action. It’s hard to imagine someone filing suit against the government for doing what it needs to do to keep it from defaulting. As I said, likely naive.
I might hazard a guess that someone who shorted T-bills might be the right person to get the issue of standing solved enough for a court challenge.
If it’s someone who lives in the Texas Panhandle, so much the better.
Besides the question of who has standing to sue, the courts don’t really have any power here. This is a political question that must be answered by the political branches, over which the courts have no jurisdiction. And there’s also the question of what remedy the courts could enforce. The courts aren’t going to invalidate the contracts and obligations of the government. And the courts can’t make the political branches pass a law.
From the courts’ point of view, the best option is to decline jurisdiction. The worst option would be to try to impose an unworkable solution and then be ignored.
I disagree (a bit).
If the president goes to congress and says, “F-you! I’m ordering the Treasury to continue to write checks no matter what you say. 14th amendment assholes!”
And congress says, “But but but…we control the budget! Not you! Article I, Section 8, Clause 1! Jerk!”
It seems a place for the Supreme Court to step in.
But the President would be continuing to execute the budget. If Congress wanted to spend differently, they’d pass a new budget.
I agree.
Which makes me wonder why Biden doesn’t tell republicans to go pound sand…he’s gonna pay the bills.
Why dems keep bowing to this extortion is beyond me. Not sure what I am missing.