By Bruce Bialosky
Saturday, October 13, 2013
You would have had to be under a rock to miss our
President stating that recently. He mouthed that repeatedly during the budget
debate and the government shutdown. It became his mantra leading up to the
impending vote for raising the debt ceiling. The constitutional lawyer was
apparently absent the day they taught that we have three co-equal branches of
government. More than anything else, Mr. Obama apparently does not understand
how the debt ceiling works.
President Obama has regularly repeated “I will not
negotiate over the full faith and credit of the United States.” Certainly he
may mean that, but it appears he does not really understand the nature and the
history of the debt ceiling. Or like many other things he may just be choosing
to ignore it.
As with many other things, there was not always a debt
ceiling. It was not part of our Constitution, as I am sure the Founders of our
country never envisioned us being this much in debt. In fact, until 1917 the
Congress had to authorize every specific incident of the country contracting
debt. Then the United States entered World War I. Six months after our entry
into the war, the Congress passed the Second Liberty Bond Act. The concept of a
debt ceiling was created in this act. The law allowed the executive branch to
issue bonds or incur other debt without Congressional approval. The debt could
be issued up to a pre-established limit. The law was signed by the then most
liberal President (Wilson) the country has had (other than the current one). It
was passed by a Congress that had a plurality of Republicans in the House and a
majority of Democrats in the Senate.
You may wonder what the leaders were thinking at the
time. You can surmise that they wanted to provide flexibility to the President
during a time of war. But since financial matters originate in the House, they
did not want to provide a carte blanche to the executive branch to incur
unlimited debt.
Thus, they established that a vote would have to be taken
any time the debt ceiling would be raised. And it has been that way for 96
years. A vote in the Congress is by definition a political event. During the
past 96 years there have been numerous votes regarding raising the debt
ceiling, and I cannot remember a President flatly stating he will not
negotiate.
Just to be clear there have been 53 votes to change the
debt ceiling just since 1978. Of those votes only 26 were passed without being
tied to other policy issues. The other 27 times (more than half) the debt
ceiling was raised as part of either a comprehensive package or tied to
significant reforms.
One of the arguments the President makes for his unique
position revolves around the manner in which the debt was created. Mr. Obama
states that the Congress is just approving the debt for expenditures to which
they have previously committed. But our President once again deliberately
misstates the facts. He seems to forget that his partner-in-crime, The
Undertaker, has not passed a budget out of the U.S. Senate in four years. Well,
that is technically incorrect. The Senate did pass a budget, but the Undertaker
has ordered Senator Patty Murray, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, to not
conference with Paul Ryan and the House Budget Committee as directed by the
Constitution. That is why there has been a fight over a continuing resolution
to keep the government operating. We once again have no official budget. But
why should the Democrats in the Senate follow the law when they know they are
doing the right thing?
One writer stated “I know of no other developed nation
that has a debt ceiling. This is purely a recurring symbolic vote to make
people feel good by voting against it.” That may have been so when Mr. Obama
was in the U.S. Senate and voted against raising the debt ceiling during the
Bush Administration. But times have changed. We have a President who has spent
recklessly, and we have a Senate that has enabled him by not following their
Constitutional obligation and approving a budget which might control that
spending.
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