Bill Blum: Obama Is Right on the Debt Ceiling!

The entire artificial crisis over the national debt ceiling threatens to tank the world economy as early as the middle of next month. According to the Obama Administration, there is nothing the president can do on his own to raise the ceiling or maneuver around it. As much as some of us may disagree, Obama is correct. Here is why: Since the enactment of the Second Liberty Bond Act in 1917, federal law has required Congress to set a ceiling on the amount of debt the country can carry at a given time to finance its operations, and pay the interest on bonds previously issued. Until the tea party takeover of the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections, Congress had raised the ceiling 106 times, usually as a matter of routine, to prevent the country from falling into default. But no more. This time, even more vehemently than in 2011, Republican hard liners in both the House and Senate, have vowed not to lift the ceiling, without unprecedented cuts to the social safety net. So, unless Obama caves in to Republican demands, which is always a possibility, what are his best go it alone options? To date, three principal strategies have been floated: (1) relying on the public debt clause of the 14th Amendment. (2) invoking an obscure "necessities of state" doctrine, and minting a trillion dollar platinum coin. Each is a clever concept worthy of an "A" in the toughest law school. None, however, stands a chance of succeeding outside the halls of academia, the op ed pages of leading newspapers, or the echo chamber of the Internet. The 14th Amendment's Public Debt Clause: The public debt clause (Section 4) of the 14th Amendment states that "the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law shall not be questioned." Debt clause proponents, including former President Bill Clinton, congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, Nation magazine editor Katrina van den Heuvel, and constitutional scholars Garrett Epps of Baltimore University, and Yale's Jack Balkin, contend that if Congress declines to raise the debt ceiling, the clause authorizes the president to ignore the ceiling and order the Treasury to issue additional debt to pay both its bondholders and fund existing programs.