I suffered a short spate of depression yesterday after being advised by Norman Goldman that the courts frown upon "implied repeal". "Implied Repeal" is what the Republicans did when they created the 2011 budget. My position was that the budget they created implied the repeal of the "debt limit" law; that the 2011 budget signed into law in this legislative session trumps the debt limit law signed into law in the previous session.
Norm Goldman is an x attorney turned talk show host. I sent him an e-mail which he answered and I called in and he took the call. But after thinking about what he said I came to the conclusion that, while he is certainly correct in his espoused answer, he is missing one of the facts. That fact is that there is a third law that says that the treasury MUST offer treasury notes to cover any deficits.
Norm said that the courts will insist that if there is any way to comply with the two laws (the debt limit and the budget) then there is no repeal. But read on:
What happens when we expand this to the THREE laws that contradict? The Republi-cons as Norm calls them would like to think that there is no way out of the box but to cut spending. The inherent lie is that they APPROVED the spending in the 2011 budget. When they did that they either implicitly repealed the "debt limit" or the "borrowing law" (the borrowing law says that all deficits must be managed by borrowing via T-bills and T-bonds). So even if the courts are wary of "implied repeal", there has been an implied repeal of one of these two debt laws.
Norm said that if there is ANY WAY to abide by all the previous laws while abiding by the current law, then there is no "implied repeal". But there ISN'T any way to comply with all three of these laws.
The Republican solution is that the congress will terminate the Medicare and Social Security systems as a means to pamper the lying pigs into upping the debt limit before August. If that doesn't happen then it will be incumbent upon the president to use executive order to address the issue. And the most direct solution is seignorage; the creation of money by fiat and the implied increase in taxation that such creation will necessitate.
But spending adjustments are NOT necessary. The lying pigs have already approved the spending for fiscal 2011 and that has IN FACT repealed one or both of the current debt laws. All three laws CANNOT be followed. The courts must accept that reality and executive order is the proper way forward. Now we get to what that executive order will be:
Will it be seignorage and higher taxes on the rich to control dollar devaluation? Let us hope so. Failing that, then the executive order should be to simply IGNORE the debt limit law.