As the United States stumbles through the government shutdown towards the debt-ceiling crisis, warnings have already started to appear that if the House Republicans allow the country to go over the debt-ceiling cliff, another worse crisis would be upon us almost immediately.
That would be a constitutional crisis, as expertly outlined by a professor of history in The New York Times on Tuesday.
We analyze this possibility today in
As debt ceiling cliff nears, global fallout under way
Default would not only trigger a cascading series of enormous economic crises, it probably will lead to a constitutional crisis of major proportions.
This is clear in the outstanding historical analysis of the 14th Amendment provided in Obama and the Debt on the NYT op-ed page by Prof. Sean Wilentz, professor of history at Princeton University.
“The Republicans in the House of Representatives who declare that they may refuse to raise the debt limit … are proposing a blatant violation of the 14th Amendment, which states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law” is sacrosanct and “shall not be questioned,” Wilentz writes.
If they do, after default the president has the right to declare an emergency and force a solution.
The GOP then could decide to impeach him, as it did to Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Then all bets are off.
The US Treasury warned last week the fallout of the debt ceiling approaching would begin long before Doomsday on Oct. 17. It is turning out to be exactly right.
The future is looking more perilous by the minute.