Posted by
Bert Chapman on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 6:16:15 PM
The U.S. Constitution's 14th amendment was adopted in 1868 during the throes of Reconstruction. A primary focus of this amendment was organizing government in the aftermath of the Civil War. The 4th section of this amendment has drawn immense attention and controversy because some individuals, including disgraced former President Bill Clinton, believes President Obama should use this section of the 14th amendment to unilaterally increase the United States debt without congressional approval. Obama has said his lawyers have told him this is not feasible.
Let's take a look at what this section says. It reads:
"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment for pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, should 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." Modernizing the constitution's 18th and 19th century rhetoric to include more succinctness and specificity would help prevent the recurrence of egregious interpretive errors.
It's clear this language was included ONLY to deal with economic and governance matters pertaining to the Civil War's aftermath and implementing reconstruction. Only someone with delusions of grandeur or a crack addict would think that the President could use this as a means of subverting Congress to raise the U.S. debt ceiling. Let's consult another section of the U.S. Constitution. Article I Section 7 reminds us that all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House of Representatives and Article I Section 8 explicitly states that as part of its power of the purse ONLY Congress can pay debts and borrow money on United States credit. Consequently, any presidential step to usurp this congressional power should precipitate a constitutional crisis and Congress would be within its rights to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Obama if he took such action. While we can all be frustrated with the struggle between Congress and its multiple factions and between Congress and the President over the national debt, we must not make the mistake of ignoring the Constitution and giving the President the power of the purse which Congress properly has even if it has made poor use of it in raising our debts to such expansive levels.
When writing the constitution, the framers were well acquainted with the British experience with governmental debt. For centuries, monarchs had been able to spend freely without restraint often imposing acute hardship on governmental finances and acute strain on personal finances. It took several decades of civil war in the 17th century and the 1688 Glorious Revolution to establish Parliament as the supreme arbiter of spending the nation's financial resources. Our founding fathers understandably did not want to give the executive branch and its leaders unrestricted access to the public's money. Instead, they required that all governmental expenditures be approved by the public's elected legislative representatives in the House and, eventually, the Senate.
Giving the President the power to raise the debt on his or her own accord would be a dangerous surrender of constitutional and fiscal responsibility by Congress and faciliate untold abuses of power and economic health by the executive branch. Let's kill this baby in the cradle before it has a chance to grow and strangle our country.