If Obama ignores the debt limit, he’ll totally get away with it:
At a May 25th public event, Geithner pulled a copy of the U.S. Constitution from his pocket and read from section Four of the 14th amendment: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payments of pension and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion — this is the important thing — shall not be questioned.”
What Geithner appeared to be arguing, and what many on the left are now arguing, is that the debt limit, passed as part of the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917, violates the 14th amendment’s prohibition against congressional legislation repudiating the nation’s debts.
On the legal merits, Geithner’s theory is absolutely absurd. In 1935, the Supreme Court held in Perry v United States, that section Four of the 14th amendment applied only to payments for debts incurred “by virtue of the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States.” In other words, while the federal government is required to pay its creditors, it is in no way constitutionally required to carry out other spending.
Five Questions for President Obama’s Twitter Townhall:
- Your budget was rejected by Senate 97-0 & Dems haven’t produced budget in 700+ days. Where is your economic plan? #AskObama
- You said your stimulus plan would keep unemployment below 8%. Do you agree that was a trillion dollars wasted? #AskObama
- You said it wasn’t a good idea to raise taxes in a recession but that is all you offer now to fix debt. Why? #AskObama
- You’ve added more costly regulations in 2yrs than any of your predecessors, who all reviewed. When will it stop? #AskObama
- Gas prices are high. We’re losing 90m barrels of oil due to your moratorium, plus jobs. Why release 30m from SPR? #AskObama
An ‘Urgent’ White House Budget Deal Will Be a Trojan Horse: The White House and the Democrats may be at it again! Senate Republican leaders are worried the White House will shovel a last-minute budget deal into the Congress shortly before the August 2, 2011 debt ceiling deadline. The GOP fears an “urgent” proposal on the eve of this date will give the Congress little time to review what’s in it, and the exigent nature of the deal will hamstring them into rushing it through to a vote.
"In the 1950’s [America was] the richest nation, the richest city on earth was Detroit. They voted for change and so now it is the poorest city in America. At the same time, the nation of South Korea, of all the nations on earth, was third from the bottom. Virtually the poorest nation on earth. It is now tenth from the top. If you understand the principle, the greater freedom, the greater the wealth, you can then put any nation [on this chart]. Now you can go to Tagusagopos, you can go to Buenos Aires, you can go to Cairo, you can go to Philadelphia and all you need to know is what percentage of the Gross Domestic Product is controlled by government, and the greater the government, the greater the poverty, and that’s all politics is about. Every day politicians say, “I can make a better decision for you than you can for yourself, and let me take your money away from you and make it on your behalf” and thus make the nation poorer."
-- Bob McEwen (1950-) US Congressman (OH-R) (1981-1993)
Start a rumor: Following the Fort Hood tragedy, the U.S. military decided to extend its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy to Islamist extremists so that never again will they be harassed or embarrassed as poor Major Nidal Malik Hasan was with awkward, unfair, provocative questions like, "Sir, are you sure it's right that a U.S. army officer should be posting on a Jihadist website?" and "Sir, why are you a pointing that gun at me and shouting Allahu Akbar?"
“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.” — Emerson
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