John Boehner, current Speaker of the US House of Representatives (Ohio), has recently suggested a Republican plan to avert the immanent '
fiscal cliff' or austerity crisis, by using Congress' powers to raise the debt ceiling (the amount that the government can borrow for public spending). To not raise the ceiling would lead to severe austerity and possible recession.
Boehner has suggested that he would only agree for Congress to raise the debt ceiling if President Obama agreed to make changes to Obamacare. He has accused the President of partisanship (working in the interests of his party - in contrast to bipartisanship [working with other parties to achieve a goal]):
“Given the long history of using debt limit increases to achieve bipartisan deficit reduction and economic reforms, the speaker was disappointed but told the president that the two chambers of Congress will chart the path ahead,” a Boehner aide said in an email.
President Obama warned Boehner against playing politics with the nation's finances:
“The President telephoned Speaker Boehner and told him again that the full faith and credit of the United States should not and will not be subject to negotiation,” the official said in a statement provided to POLITICO. “The President reiterated that it is the constitutional responsibility of the US Congress to pass the nation’s budget and pay the nation’s bills.”
He has now suggested granting autonomous power to the president to willfully raise the debt ceiling without Congress.
Opinions vary on whether this is good or bad thing for checks and balances. On the one hand, handing over additional powers to the president could be seen as undesirable as signals an expansion of the executive. The bipartisan compromises that come out of incidences between Congress and the President lead to effective checks and balances on abuses of power.
The argument can also be made that accomplishing things would come at a greater ease and benefit to the people if only one man had the power to enact changes. This is something that the Founding Fathers were guarding against, because they understood that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
However,
William Galston, writing in the Wall Street Journal, said President Obama is probably permitted - and even required - to borrow money himself in order to pay off debts coming due and to avoid defaulting, whether Congress approves or not.
Writes Galston:
The precise constitutional issue is the relation between the two terse sentences that define and delimit authority over government borrowing. Article I, section 8, provides (in part) that “The Congress shall have Power . . . To borrow money on the credit of the United States.”
The other key constitutional provision is section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which provides (in part) that “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions . . . shall not be questioned . . . ”
The most plausible reading of the Constitution allows him—in fact requires him—to do what is necessary to avoid defaulting on the public debt, whatever Congress may do or fail to do. But the Constitution does not allow him to treat all existing statutory programs on a par with the public debt—if doing so would require him to issue new debt above and beyond what is needed to pay the principal and interest on existing debt.
Obama appears to agree.
What you think Mill Hill Politics students?
An article agreeing that powers should be given to the President to raise debt ceiling:
