It’s interesting that the Obama administration seems totally intent on taking the debt ceiling bomb away from Congress. What I like about that is that it is a lesson for America about how incredibly irresponsible the Republicans were when they caused a downgrade in the nation’s credit rating. I know this is almost infinitely easier to do at the end of his first term than at the beginning, but this is exactly the lesson I wanted America to learn about torturing people and starting wars based on stove-piped intelligence. I also think America could have used a lesson on how criminally greedy the Wall Street assholes were who gave us the housing bubble based on the total destruction of sound mortgage credit. I don’t want to harp on the past, but sometimes it pays to make the effort to define certain behaviors as clearly beyond the pale of all acceptable civilized behavior. We missed some key chances to do that, but I am glad we’re taking the time now to make the point on the debt ceiling.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Obama is not only teaching but by separating himself he’s underscoring that this is a battle of insanity vs sane realism. Every day that the Rep claim they’re gaining leverage Obama’s team points out the insanity. Talk about quicksand.
Time to put the debt ceiling out of its misery. Congress has absolute power to tax and appropriate. If it appropriates more than it taxes, that is implicit authority to borrow.
Now if Congress appropriates based on anticipated tax revenue that does not appear, it is incumbent on Congress to rectify the situation by reducing the appropriation because they have total power of the purse.
In home terms this is like giving your kid an allowance of say $50 then telling him he can buy say an Xbox costing $300 using your credit card for the difference, then telling him he can’t charge more than $200. Actually, in temporal sequence, it really goes more like this:
“Son, you can’t charge more than $200 on my credit card.”
“Son, you can buy a $300 Xbox.”
“Son, here’s $50 toward the Xbox.”
Does your kid have the authority to charge $250 or not? (He already has the credit card in his pocket) Or is it just a cruel hoax in which you pretend to let him buy the Xbox?
I often here Republicans say Obama is spending way too much. I tell them he can’t spend more than is appropriated. They usually mumble something about Nancy Pelosi whom they regard as a worse devil than Obama.
Those who forget the past are doomed to OH LOOK IT’S A BUNNY!
Nope, squirrel.
Which is probably the right move, but is also just another massive power grab of the executive over congress. Essentially the root cause of these rolling crises is that the system is unbalanced, and the Republican House has limited ability to influence the size and shape of government, despite being its nominal appropriator. And rather than react with humility and go-along-to-get-along patriotism, they react with bitterness and rage.
Because of timing, Democrats unilaterally decided all relevant spending decisions from 2009 and ’10 and now the President can effectively veto any attempt to alter them for six years regardless of how congress changes over that time. Despite the fact that Republicans (as of January) will have controlled the lower chamber for longer than the President’s party, they still have nothing to show for it. They’re boxed in. Hence, kamikaze shutdown tactics.
This all continues to go to show why parliamentary systems of government are just better.
I don’t know, a debt ceiling would be a dumb idea in a parliamentary system too. You set an arbitrary limit on how much your government can spend, even though you’re always going to have to raise the limit when you reach it, because it would be insane not to. Getting rid of that isn’t a power grab, it’s defusing a ticking time bomb.
No, there wouldn’t be (and I believe there isn’t around the world) such a thing as a debt ceiling, because the majority coalition (by virtue of being the majority coalition) would be able to make spending decisions without conflict.
Divided government is the problem. The founders invented it to protect slavery, but ever since it’s been nothing but trouble.
who says the President doesn’t learn?
he certainly learned that they were complete sociopaths last summer.