14th Amendment and Debt Crisis

[AZRedhawk44]

Text:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. 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. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Combined with the budget process sections of the Constitution:

Article 1, Section 8:

Section. 8.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

Nowhere in the Constitution is the Executive branch empowered to pay debts or to borrow money.  Only Congress is.  The 14th Amendment makes no claim that the Executive branch is empowered to engage the government in debt in the event of a Congressional impasse.

http://news.yahoo.com/obscure-clause-may-help-us-avert-default-172136367.html

I find it deplorable that the Dems are fishing this out there to see if they can do an end-run around the Constitution with this re-imagination of the 14th Amendment.

Neither a literal, nor a contextual (this was written in 1868 and intended to protect the Union States from paying pensions or losses to the Confederate States after the Civil War) reading allows for an interpretation that empowers the Executive branch to engage in spending unauthorized by Congress.

And not a word in Article 2 of the Constitution allows for the Executive branch to engage in debts not authorized by Congress.

[AZRedhawk44]

Add to that, Section 5 of that very 14th Amendment.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Meaning that POTUS cannot over-rule the will of The Congress in regards to questions of Debt.

The Congress is still debating it.  If they want the US to pay its debts at the current rate... they will pass such a budget.

Not the POTUS.

[birdman]

The only executive power that factors in here is the execution of the laws--the branch responsible for the actual borrowing and spending is the executive.  I guess that is what "their" argument is--how can the executive fulfill it's constitutionally authorized role if it can't borrow or spend (even though, constitutionally, it can only borrow what is authorized, and spend according to what is authorized by the legislature...which is the part "they" are ignoring).  There is a reason there are both authorization AND appropriation bills which together form the legislative part of government spending.  The executive can't spend amounts above what is authorized, and must spend according to the appropriations (above a certain threshold, which was $10M when I was working for DOD...as in the maximum that could be moved either from OR too a line item, or the creation of a new line item, could not exceed that amount).

I really don't see how they can argue that any of the law (including the supreme law of the land) permits what is being suggested.  If this is done, I will be extremely unhappy with the executive, and will be first in line to sign a petition or referendum to push for impeachment, as it is a major overstepping of constitutional authority, effectively negating the power of the purse delegated to congress.

Anyone else see this as also a way around the war powers act and associated purse limits, let along allowing the executive to borrow/fund items beyond the law ("special police!?)?

[Jamisjockey]

90% of the hoodlums in Sodom on the Potomac haven't adhered to that document for damn near a hundred years.  And when they do quote it, they quote the parts that have no teeth to jam the nastiest things down our throats.  There is no constitution, only a piece of hemp paper withering away in a vault in DC.

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

It's probably gamesmanship. Obama's people are mentioning that and pretending like he doesn't have to listen to Congress on the subject, he's just doing so out of the goodness of his heart - thus, they should make major concessions, not him.

[erictank]

90% of the hoodlums in Sodom on the Potomac haven't adhered to that document for damn near a hundred years.  And when they do quote it, they quote the parts that have no teeth to jam the nastiest things down our throats.  There is no constitution, only a piece of hemp paper withering away in a vault in DC.

Parchment, not hemp (http://www.usconstitution.net/constfaq_q145.html). 

Otherwise sadly accurate.

[roo_ster]

Parchment, not hemp (http://www.usconstitution.net/constfaq_q145.html). 

Otherwise sadly accurate.

Yeah, it it were hemp, they woulda smoked it already.  Since it is parchment, it gets used as toilet paper.