Tea Party conservatives hope to make a push on the House floor to force President Obama to avoid a national default if Congress fails to raise the debt limit.
Members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus have met with House freshmen to discuss a plan to pressure House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to bring the Full Faith and Credit Act to the floor.
The legislation would direct Obama to prioritize federal payments to the nation’s creditors, Social Security recipients and soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The bill has been revised since it was introduced earlier this year. The previous version simply required the Treasury Department to pay the principal and interest on the debt held by the public over other obligations incurred by the federal government.
The challenge for conservatives is to persuade Boehner to bring it up for a vote in the ten days remaining before the Aug. 2 deadline.
Why not just pass a bill that says “Everything is Obama’s fault,” because that is what they are really doing with this. Really, the balls on these people. The only reason they are doing this is they are terrified of being tarred with the consequences of their behavior. So, what they want to do, after they cause a default and destroy our credit rating and we are unable to pay social security or the military, is stand up and say “Don’t blame me- I told him to pay social security first!”
With what money, you teahadist simpleton?
This is, however, a sign of good news. This is an implicit admission that they know the shit is going to hit the fan when they refuse to lift the debt ceiling. They don’t give fuck all about the economy or our credit rating or any of that, but the threat of millions of blue hairs ranting on national television about having to eat cat food scares the hell out of them. As well it should.
General Stuck
Breathtaking arrogance
Though, if Obama knew how to negotiate, none of this would be happening.
Matt
I seriously doubt that – every one of the teahadis voted for the Ryan budget, and that would certainly accomplish the same goal…
Guster
So far the simpletons are getting what, $1.5 trillion, $3 trillion in cuts, in exchange for a procedural bills that passes every year?
If they can make themselves say ‘yes,’ they’ll have pulled off the most impressive political coup in my lifetime. A big ‘if’, I guess.
I don’t even know what I’m rooting for anymore.
Matthew Reid Krell
What’s the end game here?
I mean, I look at this, and I can see a path opening up for the President to use the 14th Amendment option and defy them to impeach/enjoin him.
As far as court goes, I feel reasonably confident in saying that no judge will want to touch this one, and the “political question” doctrine gives them a perfect out.
As far as impeachment goes, I think the House goes for it, and I think the President is hoping they do – because he has calculated that that would end the election. Right there.
Whether he’s right about that, I dunno. But if I were in his shoes, in the situation I have THIS morning – that’s what I’d be thinking.
Of course, were I in his shoes, I’d have surrendered two weeks ago, because I’m not a political mastermind and I would be terrified of default. So my analysis might be colored by that.
Steeplejack
I think some of them actually believe “the money is really there,” and they are going to force Obama to cough it up and pay for the “good” stuff and not the “bad” stuff.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Funny how this is happening when it’s that colored fella occupying the White House. I doubt there’d be the same ruckus if another colored fella with a R after his name was in there.
Hahahahahahahahahaha, a black Republican in the White House. Sometimes I make myself laugh.
Guster
What Ryan budget? That’s ancient history. By the time the 30-second spots are burning up the cables, nobody will even remember that it was the Republicans who brought us to the brink (and maybe over) of economic meltdown.
“Remember the debt ceiling crisis,” some idiot Democrat will say. “That almost brought world financial–”
“Do you or do you not renounce the NAACP? After the videos we’ve seen, I mean, even the president is calling for an investigation. Do you renounce them, Congresswoman?”
Nedward
It’s all about jobs, right?
meh
$20 says he eats $2.7T in cuts with zero revenue. The “tell” for how its going to go is the individual mandate from ACA/HealthCare Reform. If the GOP insists that’s part of the deal, then he tells them to go fuck themselves. It’s like the hostage takers getting the ransom then at the last minute saying they want to bang your wife with you watching – or they kill her.
General Stuck
If only Obama hadn’t sold out, the republicans wouldn’t be destroying the country
Guster
MRK: “What’s the end game here?”
We give them what they want, and they let one of the hostages go. Just one, though. I don’t see the president using the 14th Amendment unless unemployment hits 25% and we’re boiling our shoes for dinner.
cat48
I’m wondering if they’re also going to demand our Triple A Rating, that could be downgraded any second, stay in place, too. The interest will be $500B a year. That’s a lot of entitlements, war, etc. That’s breathtaking. I cannot believe this is actually happening. I’m retired, but Hello Walmart! Need a greeter?
Dennis Doubleday
Agree that the TP is ridiculous. However, on this SS issue, there are actually strong legal arguments that Obama is wrong to say he wouldn’t send out SS checks. SS has a dedicated funding source–the payroll tax. Would it be legal to continue to collect FICA, but use it to pay other debts? I don’t think so.
stuckinred
Well, the NFL and players settled.
RalfW
If AARP actually gave a crap about governance as well as blue hair, they’d be all over this whole Teahadist bullshit fucking up Social Security stability. But they’re really an insurance company & a slick marketing firm now, so they suck.
gene108
But the Ryan budget was a serious debt control proposal and if it ever became law that would mean Obama would’ve signed it into law and so he gets to share the blame.
As long as Democrats can be blamed, Republicans will be O.K. Crossroads for America or whatever front group rich right-wingers fund can run attack adds against incumbent Democrats for supporting to throw granny into the cold.
Democrats don’t have the resources to mount the same time of offensive against incumbent Republicans, so it doesn’t matter what Republicans do.
Ash Can
I honestly think that a good-sized portion — if not the overwhelming majority — of the brand-new Tea Party geniuses elected last year genuinely do not completely understand how the federal government works. I’d bet the ranch that Steeplejack is absolutely right — they simply don’t understand how this debt-ceiling business works. Everything will be fine if the US defaults, and nothing will change, because shut up, that’s why.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I’m still wondering about the politics of this. Clearly the Repups are daring the President to call their bluff in the hopes that he’ll get tarred with the “first president to let the nation default” label…which the Corporate Media will duly proclaim in every outlet they control.
Still, Gingrich tried the same tactic with the gubmint shutdown and that stuck to him. Since this is a false crisis created by the Repups, one would think the politics would be worse for them. Thus, I’m still not sure why, for once, the Dems simply say “fuck you, strong memo to follow” and let a default play out.
Oh wait, we’re Dems. We’ll cave. Or as C3P0 always said in times like this “We’re doomed.”
Linda Featheringill
Lots of blame being spread around today.
Regarding the Pelosi/Reid plans of all cuts and no new revenues:
It looks to me like most of the cuts are things that are going to happen anyway, whether they are listed in a bill or not. The US is winding down from two wars. As these savings take place, less borrowing will have to take place and interest payments will shrink.
I think the Prez wants to look at Medicare Part D, the prescription plan. If the govt would negotiate for drug prices, they could save a lot. Actually, we should be doing this anyway. Less money for big pharmacy, savings for the govt, and continued prescription benefit for people.
Pelosi wants to build a wall around SS and Medicare benefits. I think that would be grand. The Republicans probably won’t like it but Boehner can’t pass a bill here without the Dems, so Nancy might get what she wants.
And in other good news, Asian stocks are down only about 1%. Maybe Armageddon has been postponed.
KCinDC
The demand for the insane balanced budget amendment is the terrorists saying they’ll release the hostage as long as you let them surgically implant a time bomb first.
arguingwithsignposts
@RalfW
I actually saw a pretty hard-hitting AARP ad on tv the other day about entitlements and the debt ceiling, fwiw.
Linda Featheringill
why am I in moderation? Armmmmageddon?
Nemesis
If House baggers dont blink, we will have default.
Plenty of apologists on the demon box all weekend telling us that default could be effectively “managed”.
Not a single interviewer said “WTF? You want a default?”
Han's Big Snark Solo
@Steeplejack:
Exactly. And given that they’ve spent the last thirty years telling each other everything associated with the government is “Bad Stuff” chances are they are in for a rude awakening when they figure out that most government functions are “Good Stuff.”
@General Stuck:
Yeah, I disagree. How could any Democrat negotiate with the teabaggers? They oppose anything Obama proposes. If they were dying of cancer and Obama had the cure they would rather die than take it. I’m just saying, no amount of ninja like negotiation skill is going to cross that divide.
Yevgraf
They’re setting up the “Obama wants to pay shiftless negroes, beetlebrowed bureaucrats, union thugs and coastal elitists” schtick.
Bulworth
All they give a fock about is blaming Obama. For something. Anything.
SRW1
Isn’t it lovely how they are concerned about Social Security. They want that dragon slain, but sure don’t want to be seen doing it.
alwhite
And its still July 1914. Nobody wants a war but nobody has the power to stop it. It looks more and more like we can stop talking about if we default & start figuring out what needs to be done when we default.
Bulworth
Wonderful. Trying to imagine the media reaction if a Dem House was refusing to raise the debt ceiling with a GOP in the Oval Office and a GOP Senate.
And imagine if we were at war. //
debit
@Han’s Big Snark Solo 22
I believe the good General was being sarcastic.
David Fud
@Steeplejack
Considering that one of the Tea Congressmen was on explaining exactly that on NPR just 3 days ago, you are absolutely correct. In essence, he stated that we would have plenty of money to pay our obligations, but we would have to stop paying the voluntary stuff to make it happen.
Wheeeee! Get ready for higher interest rates, boys and girls!
RalfW
Guster
I had that exact feeling as I read John’s post. I’m so freakin pissed off at the House Repubs and the idiot media that I almost – not quite – want the damn house of cards to collapse. But I also know that crises create unknowns that can bite us on the ass, hard. Hence the “who to root for.”
Matthew @4 – I love the idea of Obama using a House impeachment as the ultimate weapon. Can’t imagine it getting to that, but every day has been a new day of insanity in our Craven New World.
Han's Big Snark Solo
@debit: Oh, sarcasm. Sorry General, I just saw a clip of Marcus Bachman dancing and my sarcasm detector was overpowered by the blaring claxon of my gaydar.
gelfling545
@Steeplejack: I think you are right. Since they don’t seem to “get” where money for the government to actually do things comes from, I guess they assume that the government just HAS from the money fairy or whatever.
Linda Featheringill
@Dennis Doubleday: #12
SS payments:
As I understand it, the SS fund is invested in T bills. The govt redeems these bills as SS needs the cash to send out payments.
If the govt is short of cash, it borrows money by issuing more bonds and then it redeems SS-held T-bills. But this increases the govt indebtedness. If the govt cannot increase the debt, it cannot issue bonds, and it cannot scrape up the cash to redeem the bonds SS needs to sell in order to pay out SS benefits.
Are there ways around all that? Probably.
Marty
So the bottom line here is Obama’s inevitable impeachment. What a surprise.
RalfW
arguingwithsignposts @21
I realize now that I don’t watch the networks that AARP would choose. Good to know they’re in the mix.
General Stuck
House whip, Rep Mccarthy, is still peddling the cut crud and cap insanity with the balanced budget amendment. While Rome burns, Obama is standing in the way of progress.
Yevgraf
My current operating theory is that the teatard caucus is overwhelmingly populated by enthusiastic conservofascist web commenters. There’s an awful lot of freeper/redstate ignorance being expressed and believed in.
As Rimjob at FR said during the Schiavo thing, “facts don’t matter”…
Rick Taylor
By now, impeachment in the House seems almost inevitable to me. I don’t see how the debt ceiling gets raised, I don’t see the President just sitting back while the country’s economy is destroyed, and I don’t see Republicans resisting the push from their outraged base to call for impeachment.
Town
We gots to tell that boy what to do!
There. Fixed.
KCinDC
I’m having trouble imagining how even a master negotiator wins a game of chicken with a psychopath. This battle was lost in Nov 2010, and now we’re just trying to minimize the damage.
Suffern ace
If unemployment goes up because the government wont pay it’s contractors, that’s just another sign that spending is too high. People are too reliant on gov spending which is obviously morally wrong. Only soldiers and retirees do any real work in the government. It has long been a conservative principal that the needs of people who aren’t in the labor force should take precedence over those who are in the labor force. If you aren’t retired you are a loser in a big way.
Kirbster
RalfW @ 14: The AARP has been running a TV campaign about Social Security for several weeks (at least in the SE New England market), but it fails to name the Teahadist Republicans as the instigators of the fake “crisis” and by omission endorses the “both sides do it” narrative.
Violet
@gelfling545:
They think the money can be found if all the social programs are cut. Of course that doesn’t include Social Security and Medicare. Any kind of assistance for low-income folks (read: black and brown people) can be cut, and there’s all the money you need!
You and I and anyone who can count understand that even if all those things were cut, it’s not nearly enough money to pay our interest and our other bills. But in their minds, that’s all it would take.
danimal
Boehner isn’t so stupid as to bring this to a vote, is he? Let’s game it out. The Full Faith and Blame Obama vote passes the House and somehow gets 60 votes in the Senate. A tranquilized Obama (after showing signs of rage at the mention of tea…) signs the thing and then the August 2nd passes without an extension.
Obama, as directed by Congress pays interest on the debt, the military, and precious little else. Citizens begin to become upset at the massive government shutdown.
Because the GOP has orchestrated the default and then orchestrated who gets paid, the public turns on the GOP to get out of this mess. All Obama needs to do is give Speaker Boehner’s phone number to the press.
They will absolutely, 100% own this thing forever, first with pride, afterwards with shame, for as long as anyone remembers. People like the government services, after all.
cat48
McCarthy the Whip was just on msnbc & although he will not say Yes, all indications are its the Cut/Slash/Burn they want as the price of releasing a hostage. The Amendment, too.
jwb
General Stuck: Are you filling in for Mike Kay this morning?
General Stuck
You introduce the chicken to Colonel Sanders
Bulworth
It’s only starting to dawn on me now that the teabag party actually doesn’t want to, and doesn’t intend to, raise the debt ceiling. They actually do want to default. Fortunately there aren’t any wars going on or anything.
dedc79
There’s sickingly simple explanation for what’s going on right now. For two plus years of Obama’s presidency,republicans have devoted themselves to obstructing everything he tries to do, no matter whether it’s originally a Republican idea or a Democratic idea. So Obama court nominees and nominees to head various administrative positions get filibustered, republicans cut agency funding to agencies they don’t like, republicans waste time repealing a health care bill they don’t have the ability to repeal. The list goes on and on. The thing about all these actions is that their consequences were limited. If you fillibuster a nominee eventually that nominee withdraws and a new one is nominated. Sure it sucks but the scope of the harm is limited. Republicans are now emboldened by the power they’ve gained as obstructors, but they’ve chosen to assert that power in one of the only situations where obstruction will lead to an actual catastrophe. They think they run the show because Obama needs their votes but they forget that they need Democratic votes to do anything as well. And for once doing nothing is unacceptable but they’re too stupid (willfully, perhaps) to see that.
danimal
BTW, I predict the Fed will step in with one of those “creative solutions” to resolve the impasse at the 11th hour. Bernanke, on his white horse, saving the day. He’s a cautious Republican, but not one of the insane types in Congress. Maybe Obama mortgages the Washington Mall to the Fed for a few trillion and the problem goes away for a while, something like that.
debit
@Bulworth 50: It’s weird. My dad, who used to be a smart guy, is of the “Let it burn. Let it all burn.” school of thought. Like, we’ll rise up from the ashes stronger or something. Pity about all the people who died or suffered, but WE WILL BE STRONGER! I don’t even know.
RalfW
Total, complete, epic media fail. I increasingly feel it’s not Congress that sucks – they sucked in the Gingrich years, they were beyond awful in the Teapot Dome years, etc.
But our “watchdog” press is the institution that is failing us even more than Congress. They are scared of their own shadows these days. They have double PTSD – (a) they’ve been pummeled by, in effect, highly armed paid trolls on radio and other networks and (b) they keep loosing market share whether print or TeeVee, and they can’t figure out how to make money in the new era.
If no one is willing to say “it’s insane to talk about managing a default” out of all the Sunday TeeVee shows then we are not being served at all by a press that gives a shit about anything but their own asses.
Maybe Cronkite was too establishment, but you had he sense he fucking cared whether the US of A self-immolated.
Han's Big Snark Solo
@Bulworth:
Yep. They’ve been trying to starve the beast for decades. They see this as their crown jewel. Now the government won’t have any choice; it will have to do away with the New Deal programs, Medicare and any other government program that might help the unworthy. Whoops, did I say unworthy? What I meant to say was non-rich (or non-jobcreator) and or non-white.
They want a caste system, which would be the death of the American dream.
overeducated
Honestly, my first impression is that the 2.7 trillion with no revenues is a capitulation and a terrible deal. Obama would do better politically (and for the country) to reject that and go the 14th amendment route. Before I pass judgement however lets see what the deal actually entails…
Markets aren’t crashing because everyone thinks the brinksmanship is just Kabuki. Look at what happened with Lehman. No one believed the government would allow Lehman to fail. I don’t expect to see a market crash until and unless we actually default.
lacp
Wow. So now Tea Partiers think there’s plenty dough for Uncle to meet his obligations? They’re subscribing to MMT? And here I thought that was only for lefties – wonders never cease…..
apocalipstick
Yevgraf, the Teahadi from the district next to mine is an auctioneer and local right-wing radio host. His name is Billy Long and he’s as thick as two planks. You’ve hit the nail right on the head.
Davis X. Machina
@General Stuck: McCarthy knows that Boehner is toast, but he also thinks Cantor is going down, Ahab-style, lashed to Orange Julius’ side. IOW, no Speaker Cantor, either.
Watch him carefully… yon wingnut has a lean and hungry look.
RalfW
Also, too, the freshmen Repubs all probably have friends who walked away from jumbo mortgages on suburban McMansions and managed to “restore” their credit, keep the BMW, and now live in new homes again.
So the US can do that, too, right? Right?
Libby
Jamie Holly, the tech guy from C&L has a good post on the crackpots’ math deficiency.
RalfW
Honestly, the party of personal responsibility is the biggest crock of marketing bullshit since I can’t believe it’s not butter.
Davis X. Machina
@David Fud:
Locked the floating HELOC last week. Of course, it takes having a job to make the now-fixed payments.
@Kirbster:
Business move. If they named the Republicans, their membership would evaporate.
Kane
There are countless Republicans on record arguing that Obama and Geithner and Democrats are lying about the damage that that will ensue if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. There’s Michele Bachmann campaign ads declaring that she wont vote for the raising of the debt ceiling, and that all will be okay with a government default. There are ample YouTube videos showing Mike Pence and other Republicans at tea party gatherings cheering Cut it or shut it, salivating at the thought of a government shutdown.
It’s far too late for John Boehner to stand at the podium and declare that no one wants to see the nation go into government default. It’s much too late for Republicans to try to spin this as if they never threatened and desired a default. No piece of legislation will change that reality.
Capri
If the AARP was a right-wing corporate sell-out, there would be no need for the Republican “Please don’t give me health care or benefits” alternative groups that have sprung up.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the AARP. They have been working to educate their members on the health care bill and other issues since I’ve been a member. They certainly have a financial interest in most of this stuff as well, but they by and large try to look out for the elderly and support things that benefit the majority of their constituents.
AAA Bonds
Oh, that’s fine, we’ll totally be in good shape if we stop all the other funding. @ _ @
We’re gonna get shock doctrine’d. Step 1 is downgrading our credit.
Napoleon
danimal@52
gex
@67 – but the Fed is a private entity comprised of banks, isn’t it? Asking them to burn $3 trillion is like asking our wealthiest to accept a tax raise. They aren’t going to give up any of theirs, even if it destroys the country.
kth
Really a dumb move from the Scozzofava faction, which will result in them owning the imminent shutdown even more than they do already.
Joseph Nobles
Could Obama involve the Supreme Court to weigh in on the 14th Amendment option? If so, how would that work?
bemused
“Cheeky bastards” is something Craig Ferguson would say. Cheeky just sounds rather cute but exasperating like a chipmunk making mischief/nests in your garage. Hubristic, pompous, swaggering, imperious, cocky, dictatorial or arrogant bastards are all a better fit.
Napoleon
gex@68
I know it is not a typical governmental entity but I really don’t think it is truly private. Besides it may actually be in their interest ultimately.
For a variation on the theme though a few days ago I read a tongue in cheek thing where apparently the government is authorized to mint platinum coins. The suggestion was to mint a $3 trillion dollar coin (with Alfred Newman and “What me worry” instead of In God We Trust). If they could actually do that use the coin to redeem $3 trillion in Notes at the Fed.
Emma
You introduce the chicken to Colonel Sanders: how? I’ve been trying to work this out. What can Obama do, other than take extra-constitutional steps and face impeachment?
Napoleon
Yes he could, but typically the default would have to happen and he would then have to then ignore the debt limit and issue bonds, then Congress would have to sue. Until that point the conflict would not be “ripe” for adjudication. There are certain exceptions to that rule so the question is could you get them to take it before the default, and if so could they issue a lightning fast opinion?
Dennis SGMM
@alwhite:
That sounds right to me. I’m sure that historians will write about this just as they’ve written about the events of 1914. I even have a title for the first book, The Dumbs of August.
Linda Featheringill
@Napoleon:
In theory, such a move would debase the dollar and cause inflation. It might also inspire the currency market to move away from the dollar.
Then of course, you’d have to persuade the banks involved to actually go along with this scheme.
I’d consider this a last-ditch plan. The Constitutional Option would probably be better.
chopper
@Kane:
let’s be honest, all those guys made out fine so far since 2008. their portfolios probably took a hit, but look at how much better the rich have done since then vs everyone else. they just think a default is going to be the same thing all over again.
Linda Featheringill
@Emma: #73
The GOP could try impeachment. That is their right. Don’t they need something like 2/3 of the house in order to start proceedings?
chopper
exactly. once default happens, most all of the ‘big moves’ would have a serious impact on the dollar. if the rest of the world loses confidence in it in a big way we’re pretty much boned.
shortstop
That’s exactly what the stupid fucking willfully ignorant bastards think.
Not to put too fine a point on their perfidy.
Linda Featheringill
Impeachment.
I was wrong. The House draws up the articles of impeachment and needs only a simple majority to pass them. It then goes to the Senate where a trial is held. A two-thirds majority of the Senate is required to convict.
When a conviction is obtained, the target of the impeachment immediately loses his/her office.
[wiki is very handy]
Town
Do you think this Supreme Court would give Obama an answer that would help him?
RalfW
In the other thread someone suggested that impeaching Obama, assuming he continues to handle the fuckin’ manufactured crisis better than the Teatards, could be to his advantage.
There’s no way the Senate, even as crappy and self-serving as it is, could muster a 2/3rds vote.
Obama has stayed centrist, reasonable, and even in the boo-hoo-for-Bobo presser last Friday Obama just came off as a grumpy for good reason dad, not nutz.
It’s a massive gamble, but getting him impeached could really damage the GOP. Or it could destroy Obama. But it’s certainly not a slam-dunk for the Repubs.
Napoleon
Linda Featheringill @ 76
Actually I think you are wrong. The “debasement” would have occurred when the Fed printed up (in effect) $3t and exchanged it for the US’ Bonds. Issuing new coin to retire the bonds is simply an accounting entry (IMO) with no real life consequences. The Fed buying bonds is not the same as you and I buying them, and they having the US Gov create money to pay us off.
Joseph Nobles
@Town:
Assuming they took up the question, they would give an answer. It would be worth knowing one way or the other, and I’d like to see the argument that the Administration would give.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus have met with House freshmen to discuss a plan to pressure House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to bring the Full Faith and Credit Act to the floor.
The legislation would direct Obama to prioritize federal payments to the nation’s creditors, Social Security recipients and soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It can “direct” all it wants – it would have the same status as all the other legislation telling Obama to pay the other stuff. He’d be within his rights to ignore legislation saying “Pay this first” by pointing at equally valid legislation saying “pay this”. What they’re attempting to do is invalidate that other legislation without, you know, actually repealing it.
Glen Tomkins
“With what money, you teahadist simpleton?”
Well, with the 55% of expednitures that can be covered by tax revenue. At our current burn rate, we’re only 45% into spending borrowed money. Were the ceiling to be respected, and the national debt not added to beyond it, that would mean that the US would “only” not be able to meet 45% of expenditures. 55% of expenditures could be met.
These Teahadists in Congress who are pushing the Full Faith and Credit Act do have this one point at least tangentially, accidentally, right. For the debt ceiling law to be respected by the administration, it has to have intstructions on which 55% of obligations are to be respected, and which 45% are to be stiffed. Money can only move out of the Treasury by law. All of the laws obligating spending, collated into the budget bills enacted just a few months ago, are the only currently existing legal authorization for spending US money, and that auhtorization doesn’t make any allowance for brokering spending, for only paying some obligations and not others. There would have to be some legal scheme other than the budget bills in existence that would allow Treasury to prioritize spending for it to be able to respect the ceiling, because if it treats the ceiling law as inviolable, it can’t borrow enough to treat the budget bills as inviolable.
Without something like the Full Faith and Credit Act, Treasury will be forced to ignore the ceremonial ceiling in the debt ceiling law in favor of the real, legal debt ceiling, which is however much the US has to borrow to meet its legal obligations. Nothing else will work, legally, fiscally, economically or politically. Though God knows Obama seems intent on muddying the political waters against this only sane administration response to a failure to raise the ceiling.
Gustopher
Well, who would you want to pay first, second and third?
You’re going to run out of money pretty quick and screw over a lot of people, but if you’re trying to minimize the damage, I think interest payments (to avoid a complete default), Social Security and military families isn’t a bad set of priorities.
Still screw over military contractors, doctors getting medicare/medicaid payments, and countless others, so we’ll still get our complete and utter fiasco caused by the teabaggers, but we should be targeting the money we do have at the most vulnerable.
Glen Tomkins
@Phoenician
I think that your’e right, at least insofar as any law that Congress might pass to prioritize the spending it has already obligated the US to, would have to address each and every obligated expenditure, or the administration would not be able to comply with it. The Full Faith and Credit Act doesn’t seem to get even close to doing that, it just prioritizes a few spending items, presumably for their political blame-game heft, wihtout coming close to specifying enough spending items to constitute even the reasonably complete set of instructions that Treasury would need if it is to have legal authority to broker spending.
But, of course, if there was a Congressional majority to do that, prioritize spending and get rid of spending not deemed important enough to merit the cost, well, we wouldn’t be having a fight over the debt ceiling. We would already have budget control done right, by law, which requires majorities in both chambers. The House Rs, of course, are trying to do it wrong, are trying to get around the fact that all laws, including those that obligate spending, need majorities in both chambers. They want to be the nation’s unicameral, unvetoable, legislature, and will use hostage-taking to get there.
Nutella
@Glen Tomkins:
Yes, it drives me nuts that this point is made so seldom. We already have a budget passed by Congress that obligates the executive branch to spend all the money in that budget. A second law requiring payment of part of it means that the executive branch is now required to break one or another of those laws so the president will have to choose one, that is, the president will have to do the work that Congress is too effing stupid and irresponsible to do and break one of the laws while he’s doing it.
Nutella
I suppose one kabuki move that might be amusing, if this all weren’t so tragically stupid, is for one of the Ds to get a clause into this Full Faith and Credit Act specifying that the last items the US should pay for are all the salaries, benefits, and expenses of the legislative branch so the lights and AC in the Capitol and congressional offices get shut off first.
Edited for clarity
Rome Again
@dedc79:
Absolutely willfully. Boehner just recently was quoted as saying that Republicans would do this on their own if they had to. He’s totally delusional. His caucus members have become completely sociopathic.
Bender
Are you joking? Is this some kind of performance art?
No, unfortunately, you are the simpleton. You refuse to understand what the debt ceiling is, no matter how many times it’s explained to you.
Do you seriously not know that, even without a ceiling increase:
1) default won’t happen…unless Obama wants it. It’s a scare tactic, reliant on a complicit or dangerously stupid media to spread nonsense. That’s why the ratings agencies ignore the ceiling and focuses on the total debt.
2) the government will still take in tax revenue, and there’s enough of it (over $1T through the new year) to fund the interest on the debt (which is why default won’t happen), SS checks, Medicare, military pay, with a few billion left over.
3) the government will still spend money. This GOP bill prioritizes that spending.
Nutella
@Bender:
So you agree that the president can pick and choose which laws passed by Congress he wishes to implement. They passed a budget which requires him to spend the money in it. They are thinking of passing this new law which instructs him to spend a different, lower amount of money. He gets to (and has to) choose which law to implement since they are contradictory.