Last night I heard something amazing. That someone on MSNBC had claimed Harry Truman had apparently used the 14th Amendment to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling. If true, that would mean legal and constitutional precedent has already been set for doing so again. But, I was skeptical and decided to check this out.
I found a confirming post on Firedoglake...
Truman was not the best Democratic President in history. Still, he had enough sense to invoke the Constitution when the legislation broke down. Mr. Obama has “talked to” his “lawyers’” and he is not “pursuaded that this is a winning argument.” I wonder how so? I reiterate… Truman did it, why can’t Obama do it too? Were the Attorneys’ that different then, was the Constitution not the same when considering the 14th amendment?
But what a basic Google search also brought up was this from Politifact.
A statutory limit on federal borrowing was first established with the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917, which helped finance the nation’s entry into World War I, according to the Congressional Research Service. That act allowed separate limits for different forms of debt.
In 1939, Congress eliminated those separate limits and set up the first aggregate limit covering nearly all public debt. During the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the debt ceiling was raised annually between 1941 and 1945 to pay for the costs associated with World War II. The limit was increased to $65 billion in 1941.
Soon after the debt limit was increased to $300 billion in April 1945, Truman became president. The debt ceiling was reduced to $275 billion in June 1946, and the Korean War was primarily financed by higher taxes, not increased debt.
The debt ceiling would not increase until 1954, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president.
According to Politifact Truman is the only President since 1917 who didn't raise the debt ceiling, instead he actually lowered it - and he didn't invoke the 14th Amendment to do it at all.
So whose right here?
This PDF from the Congressional Research Service confirms Politifact;
The debt ceiling was raised to accommodate accumulating costs for World War II in each year from 1941 through 1945, when it was set at $300 billion.15 After World War II ended, the debt limit was reduced to $275 billion. Because the Korean War was mostly financed by higher taxes rather than by increased debt, the limit remained at $275 billion until 1954.
So the rumors are untrue. Truman didn't do it, so that's not a good reason to bludgeon Obama for not considering it.
What Truman did do, was use the 14th Amendment to Integrate the Military. He also threatened to nationalize the railroads and mobilize the army in order to break a wildcat strike, but even when he did that he went through Congress.
When the deadline passed, Truman went before Congress to seek the power to deny seniority rights to strikers and to draft strikers into the armed forces. Just as Truman reached the climax of his speech, he received a note saying that the strike was “settled on the terms proposed by the President.”
So he didn't even have to go through with that one.
Doing as Truman did then, is not really on the table because the wildcat strikers in question this time - are in Congress.
There are also other problems with using the 14th to short-circuit this crisis - and that begins with the text of the 14th itself.
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.
It's the "authorized by law" portion that troubles me because Congress makes the Laws, so this wouldn't seem to apply to any section of debt not so authorized by the Congresses legal authority.
Also what doesn't "Validity of the Debt" really mean, that the debt is or isn't real? No one can say that debt is false?
As I found on this blog.
I do not think it is a winning argument. Article 1, Section 8 gives Congress the power to pay debts and borrow money. One could argue that Amendment 14 altered this by adding to the President’s power by saying the validity of the debt should not be questioned. An historical read of this amendment, however, clearly weakens that claim — it is focused on the Civil period and its aftermath. Nonetheless a literal interpretation (e.g., just the text, not historical context) at least creates an opening for that argument.
Yes the section on "insurrection or rebellion" seems to be suggestion that the government as a whole would have special ability to borrow in order to quell that rebellion, not that we can keep paying social security checks (which admittedly, didn't exist).
Legal Scholars seem to agree more with that view as well.
The provision in question, Section 4 of the amendment, was meant to ensure the payment of Union debts after the Civil War and to disavow Confederate ones. The Supreme Court has said in passing that those words have outlived the historical moment that gave rise to them.
Yeah, well, that's not good.
The words of the provision are in important ways quite vague. “Nobody would argue,” said Sanford Levinson, a law professor at the University of Texas, “that Section 4 is clear in its meaning, other than at the time everyone thought that the South, if they ever got back in control, would not pay Civil War debt.”
“This is not a circumstance,” said Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, “in which the courts have any plausible point of entry.”
Professor Balkin agreed. “This is largely a political question,” he said. “It is unlikely courts would decide these questions.”
Yes, but just how likely is it - that if Obama invokes this obscure and dubious power, or similarly attempted to call a "National Emergency" which granted him some powers not explicitly outlined in the Constitution - how likely would this Congress respond with Impeachment Charges?
Professor Levinson was less certain. Impeachment by the House of Representatives “seems to me quite likely.” But, he added, “it is also literally unimaginable that the Senate would convict.”
I agree, they probably wouldn't be able to convict and remove him - but seriously
If we thought the last few weeks have been like watching a three-ring circus in a swamp, that would pretty much be like setting the tent on Fire.
The truth is that something has got to give - while Boehner is waisting time breaking arms and getting squat from the Debt Jihadists in his party - we're inching closer and closer to this... a full-stop to Payments for all Active Duty Military, the VA, the DOJ, including the FBI, Department of Energy (who handing the hunting for Lose Nukes) and Air Traffic Controllers.
There's got to be better way.
Vyan
10:51 AM PT: Better options such as a Clean Debt Ceiling Vote, which Thinkprogress reports they've found 267 House Votes for. We do this and this game of Debt-Chicken is over.