news:b3cb3e21-13fc-498f...@d10g2000yqe.googlegroups.com:
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-wont-use-14-amendment-2013-1
In order to be able to understand the current debt-limit battle in
Washington, here is the essential historical background:
The U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment states very clearly that “the
validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, ...
shall not be questioned.”
However, the so-called “debt limit,” as it’s currently known – which
violates that Amendment boldly – was instituted only in recent times.
It was instituted in 1995, by the Republican-majority U.S. Congress, when
Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich tried to coerce President Bill
Clinton to slash “entitlements”: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
He especially wanted to slash Medicare.
The solid-Republican congressional votes against increasing the debt-limit
in order to pay “the public debt of the United States, authorized by law”
did actually shut down the Federal Government for the first time in
history. It started on 14 November 1995 lasting for five days, and then
yet happened again on 16 December 1995 for 21 days.
During those two periods, “non-essential” government services were
suspended, while the “public debt of the United States, authorized by law”
continued to be honored.
The second federal shut-down ended on 6 January 1996, when the Republicans
finally passed and the President signed “Public Law 104-94,” a Joint
Resolution to raise the debt-limit. This action – which until then had
always been treated in Congress as routine – enabled the U.S. Government
to resume and continue to function, and the federal debt to continue to be
paid.
Between that time and now, congressional Republicans have insisted on
their right to violate this provision of the 14th Amendment, and
Democratic Presidents have not challenged that right.
While Republicans have been determined to cut “entitlements,” Democratic
Presidents have been ambivalent about it. That is: Presidents Clinton and
Obama have shown by their actions that they didn’t and don’t want to use
the force of Constitutional law to counter Republicans’ force.
Clinton and Obama have accepted Republicans’ option to violate the
Constitution’s provision that “the validity of the public debt of the
United States, authorized by law, ... shall not be questioned.”
During an early-December White House “Press Briefing by Press Secretary
Jay Carney, 12/06/2012,” the President’s Press Secretary was asked
“whether the President would invoke executive power and the 14th
Amendment,” and Mr. Carney responded: “This administration does not
believe that the 14th Amendment gives the President the power to ignore
the debt ceiling – period.”
In other words: Barack Obama was now officially on record as removing that
weapon from the available arsenal in his negotiations with congressional
Republicans about the debt limit. They could now quote him as agreeing
with them, that the change in congressional custom that had taken place on
this matter in 1995 was simply Congress’s assumption of a power that
Congresses had always had – nothing violating the Constitution at all.
Barack Obama had previously caved to the Republicans without fighting,
concerning his elimination of the public option from his “Obamacare.” More
recently, he broke his long-made promise never to compromise on increasing
taxes on the top 2%, $250,000+, and he had also chosen not to hold
Republicans’ feet to the fire on the fiscal cliff. Now, the only thing
that realistically remained in his arsenal of weaponry against
Republicans’ forcing slashes in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
regulatory enforcement, and many other vital government programs, was
simply handed away by him, even well before the fiscal cliff came on
January 1st.
Clearly, therefore, Mr. Obama is determined to give Republicans much of
what they want on these matters. He evidently wants to find a way to allow
that to happen. He wants House Republicans to be able to block the Federal
Government from paying its previously contracted debts, so as to force him
to cut “entitlements.”
On all prior occasions in which Obama has caved on vital details before
even negotiating with Republicans about them, he had the public on his
side but caved by his own choice. Polls showed about a 2-to-1 support for
the availability of a public option; polls showed about a 2-to-1 support
for the $250,000 benchmark for increasing tax-rates.
But Obama caved on those matters because he had lied to Democrats – and
even to many moderate Republicans – about those claimed goals of his, and
his actions showed that he actually agreed more with the goals of
congressional Republicans on these issues than he did with Democrats and
others who, in poll-after-poll on them, showed that they agreed with his
stated (and even promised) positions on them.
Now he is repeating this same behavior, regarding cuts to “entitlements.”
Yet again, polls show that the public rejects raising the retirement age,
reducing the inflation-measure in calculating benefits, and the other
Republican-pushed measures; but Obama is doing all he can to help
congressional Republicans get what they want on these issues.
Barack Obama had, even earlier, driven Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to fits
with his back-door efforts to gut such “entitlements,” as when he had
appointed the conservative Democrat Erskine Bowles to serve opposite the
extremely conservative Republican Alan Simpson as being the two co-chairs
on the White House’s “bi-partisan” federal debt commission concerning
entitlement “reform.” (The Commission produced recommendations that
congressional Democrats roundly repudiated for slashing entitlements, and
that Republicans condemned for increasing taxes.)
Obama had set this Commission up to deal with the soaring federal deficits
that had been caused by Bush’s 2008 economic collapse, by their using
those federal deficits as an excuse to slash entitlements and thus produce
even more suffering for the poor, at the same time as Wall Street was
being bailed out. (Bowles was supported by the very Wall Street banks that
were being bailed out by taxpayers. Simpson was a born conservative who
followed in his father’s footsteps as Wyoming’s Republican U.S. Senator.
His father had been quite extreme: “one of six Republican senators who
voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”)
So, that was a wolf-in-charge-of-chicken-coop type of operation, which
congressional Democrats opposed. Republicans opposed it because it would
have meant increasing taxes – it wasn’t conservative enough for them.
Thus, on the very same day, 28 March 2012, when Bowles-Simpson was finally
dashed in the House, the House passed instead the Paul Ryan budget, which
Mitt Romney ended up running on, against Obama. The 2012 “election” was
thus between two conservatives, one of whom pretended not to be.
Yet again, Pelosi and Reid are tearing their hair out about Obama’s
deceits and his preemptory caves on vital issues. On January 4th, Pelosi
in her weekly press briefing was asked about using the 14th Amendment to
annihilate the Republicans’ threats to violate the 14th Amendment, and
Pelosi said, “I’ve made my view very clear on that subject. But I’m not
the president of the United States.”
On the same day, Ryan Grim at huffingtonpost bannered “Harry Reid Would
Back Obama If He Bucks GOP On Debt Ceiling: Source.” Reid “has privately
told other Democrats, including President Obama, that if the
administration used its constitutional and executive authority to continue
paying its debts in the face of House Republican opposition, he would
support the approach.”
The way this would work is: Republicans would repeat the 1995 shut-down
cliff-hanger, and President Obama would cite the 14th Amendment, and
possibly also the trillion-dollar-coin tactic, to continue paying the U.S.
Government’s debts; and the matter would then go to the Supreme Court to
be adjudicated.
But Obama has already, through his Press spokesperson, said that he won’t
use the 14th Amendment. That will leave only the coin-tactic, which is
less likely to succeed. He has already publicly trashed his biggest
weapon.
Consequently, Nancy Pelosi on Sunday January 6th pressed the matter
further, and said on CBS' "Face the Nation," that, "If I were president,
I'd use the 14th Amendment," and she – even more importantly – explained
there why. She is, thus, for the very first time publicly, effectively
challenging the nominal head of her Democratic Party, the Republican
“Democratic” U.S. President Barack Obama, to indicate now whether he
intends to continue to stab Democrats in the back, as he has been doing
ever since he was elected and chose Timothy Geithner, Eric Holder, etc.,
and continued many of his predecessor’s policies that he had campaigned
against.
Pelosi is doing this at this time, because Obama’s “Fiscal Cliff” deal
inexplicably discarded Obama’s politically popular claimed proposal on
taxes and handed Republicans a needless win “against” him on federal
taxes, and because Obama’s shocking December 6th repudiation of the
powerful 14th-Amendment argument for blocking Republican efforts to employ
the debt ceiling as a weapon to “force” him to strip Democratic programs
on the expense side – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and regulatory
enforcement – now threatens to hand Republicans a total victory on fiscal
matters, which would be too much for congressional Democrats to stomach in
abject silence, especially since polls show strong public support for the
Democratic position on both the tax and spending sides of these matters.
There is thus now a Democratic Party rebellion against Obama, and he will
soon show by his actions – no longer just his words – whether he is a
Democrat, and whether his Republican actions in the past have reflected,
on his part, stupidity, rather than actual treachery.
Democrats in Congress cannot publicly say that they despise a Democrat in
the White House, but the signs indicate that they do. On the other hand,
what will be their response if the President continues along this path?
Continuing on this path would be far worse than anything that happened
during the Clinton years. There is no way of knowing, ahead of time, what
would happen if he does that.