If this is at all accurate, it does bring to mind several of the war room scenes from Dr. Strangelove: "We were worried about a Doomsday Gap!"
What a lame thing to say. They should be very clear that they're not going to play this game again. The President should issue an executive order that unilaterally raises the debt ceiling, and basically dare Congress to challenge him in court. Congress can't pass a debt ceiling bill; how will they jointly pass a resolution to oppose the President?There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills or they can fail to act and put the nation into default.
Article 1 of the Constitution gives only Congress the power "[t]o borrow Money on the credit of the United States," and the debt ceiling is what constitutes authorization for the Treasury to do so. The President has no authority to override the debt ceiling, or maybe a better way of putting it is that the Executive Branch has no authority or authorization to issue debt in excess of the debt ceiling. The "cleanest" way to get around the Congress on this one would be the platinum coin, and I'd argue that creating a constitutional crisis is the dirtiest way to do it. If the President won't do the former, he certainly won't do the latter.
Yes, but section 4 of the 14th amendment say "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." The money has already been borrowed, and the ceiling needs to be raised to service the debt. The reason section 4 was put into the 14th amendment was to ensure that Southern lawmakers who were returning to Congress wouldn't try some sabotage tactics to hurt the country. What these modern Congresspeople are doing is certainly nothing but sabotage. But, just today the President reaffirmed that he will not invoke the 14th amendment. He wants the game of chicken to continue, apparently.
Sharing that flowchart on debt ceiling scenarios everywhere I can. EDIT: in any case, the Republicans have maneuvered themselves into a corner for what feels like the 30th time in the last five years. Obama -- as the article notes -- has consistently misused his leverage, but in this situation he really doesn't have a wrong move to make.
It's true practically, though. That will simply never happen, so there's no real point thinking about it. I'd give it an absolute maximum of two weeks.And so a period of time will elapse… A day? A few days? A week? Two weeks? A month? Two months? More?
IMO Obama knows that this is killing the GOP, and he is ok with letting it continue. Although he has said that he won't use the coin or the 14th Amendment, it doesn't mean that he can't in a moment of crisis, which might make him look like the only reasonable person, forced to do something unreasonable. Maybe he wants Boehner to lose his seat, only to be replaced by a Tea Party favorite, which would sink the GOP for a long time. This could do it.