Owed to Billy Joe

The shutdown… not so much. But… there are so many ways to side-step the debt ceiling issue, so you have to wonder if both political parties secretly want it to happen. To the Democrats, they know that among treasured independents, the Republicans will shoulder most of the blame for the dire consequences of a default. Mid-term elections are coming and they hope that this “I’ll hold my breath until you turn blue” attitude will cause the GOP to lose seats in close contests. They argue that this law was already passed by the House, where the debate and compromise already took place, that this is a law not a bill and that attempts to unravel Obamacare have been rejected more than 42 times through the legislative process.

To the Republicans, it is a test of commitment and determination to their Base, showing how deeply they are locked to their continuing failed attempts to kill the Affordable Care Act. A delay in implementation, no matter how expensive unraveling will occur, will allow them to repeat this showdown until the law dies. If the statute continues to be deployed, the exchanges will be so deeply imbedded in our lives that only minor amendments will then be possible. They use “failure to compromise” as applicable to a bill that already had to go through that compromise process just to get passed.

What are the consequences of a default triggered by failing to raise the debt ceiling on our $12 trillion of aggregate national debt? We are watching the stock market respond very negativity, but the greater specifics aren’t so simple to understand. And it depends on the source of the opinion. Highly-regarded Bloomberg (October 7^th) summarizes the potential horribles: “Failure by the world’s largest borrower to pay its debt -- unprecedented in modern history -- will devastate stock markets from Brazil to Zurich, halt a $5 trillion lending mechanism for investors who rely on Treasuries, blow up borrowing costs for billions of people and companies, ravage the dollar and throw the U.S. and world economies into a recession that probably would become a depression. Among the dozens of money managers, economists, bankers, traders and former government officials interviewed for this story, few view a U.S. default as anything but a financial apocalypse.”

While both parties seem to need this stupid confrontation – one that has the rest of the world aghast at the callous disregard of the dire consequences – there does seem to be an “easy button,” which each is pretending not to be implementable. After all, if there were an easy button and it took away this battle that both parties appear to be embracing, why wouldn’t someone turn in that obvious direction? Obviously, they appear to want the confrontation. They want winners and losers.

What’s the “out”? It’s in one of the five numbered sections of the Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution: “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.”

Where did this provision come from, and what does it mean? Princeton history professor, Sean Wilnitz, writing for the October 7^th New York Times tells us: “Congress passed the 14th Amendment and sent it to the states for ratification in June 1866. Its section on the public debt began as an effort to ensure that the government would not be liable for debts accrued by the defeated Confederacy, but also to ensure that its own debt would be honored.

“That was important because conservative Northern Democrats, many of whom had sympathized with the Confederacy, were in a position to obstruct or deny repayment on the full value of the public debt by paying creditors in depreciated paper money, or ‘greenbacks.’ This effective repudiation of obligations already accrued — to, among others, hundreds of thousands of Union pensioners and widows, as well as investors — would destroy confidence in the government and endanger the economy.

“As the wording of the amendment evolved during the Congressional debate, the principle of the debt’s inviolability became a general proposition, applicable not just to the Civil War debt but to all future accrued debts of the United States. The Republican Senate leader, Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, declared that by placing the debt ‘under the guardianship of the Constitution,’ investors would be spared from being ‘subject to the varying majorities which may arise in Congress.”

“Two years later, on the verge of the amendment’s ratification, its champions inside the Republican Party made their intentions absolutely clear, proclaiming in their 1868 party platform that ‘national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the utmost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad,’ and pronouncing any repudiation of the debt ‘a national crime.’”

The President and each member of Congress has taken a solemn oath. For Congress, it is an obligation to “support and defend the Constitution.” For the President, it is an obligation to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” They clearly aren’t following their sworn duty! But if the President were to act unilaterally to end this crisis as he seems to be clearly empowered to do, he will be attacked by the GOP as having high jacked the country, the law and the political process… they will then attempt to turn the perception of the Democrats as autocrats, which might equally impact those treasured independents. So even the Dems are pretending as if this constitutional amendment does not apply to the instant situation. But it does.

For each and every elected member of Congress, and for the President himself, failure to lift the debt ceiling by whatever constitutional means required is a violation of their highest and most sacred duty. There is no choice! Do what you swore that you would do as a condition of accepting your office! Now! No more grandstanding! No more games!

I’m Peter Dekom, and either the Constitution means something… or it’s time to start this country over again!