Debt ceiling and the 14th amdendment

[Berkut]

I am genuinely unsure how the Dems should be handling this politically.

The GOP is being complete douchebags. They are using the fililbuster to stop any vote on raising the debt ceiling from coming to the floor, and just telling the Dems to handle it through reconciliation. This is a tactical move on their part, that has nothing to do with any principal at all, other then straight out obstructionism.

Should the Dems knuckle under, it of course will just validate the GOP position of just being obstructionist assholes. But they are using the debt ceiling to call the Dem bluff. And they have built into the modern Conservative pollical movement a total disregard for ethical or moral standing, or any kind of responsibility for their actions. It is the current *definition* of "conservatism", so they don't really have a downside to pay that has already not being absorbed into the basic ethos of the GOP.

I am really not sure how the Dems should respond to this.

Progressive Dems are also being douchebags though.

They are refusing to vote for reconciliation unless it includes the 3.5 trillion "human infrastructure" bill which notably Sinema and Manchin in the Senate have refused to vote for (because it's a crazy amount of money).

What Dems should do is simple.  They should vote for the bipartisan real infrastructure bill, include the debt limit, declare victory and go home.

There is no reason for reconciliation though. It has nothing to do with anything.

The "bipartisan" bill does not have progressive support.

Again, this has nothing to do with the debt ceiling. The conservatives are using it as blackmail so they can force their minority legislation through. The issues are not related.

And this kind of response is why this complete bullshit works. This is why the Dems should just ditch the filibuster if it is going to be used in this manner.

[Barrister]

I am genuinely unsure how the Dems should be handling this politically.

The GOP is being complete douchebags. They are using the fililbuster to stop any vote on raising the debt ceiling from coming to the floor, and just telling the Dems to handle it through reconciliation. This is a tactical move on their part, that has nothing to do with any principal at all, other then straight out obstructionism.

Should the Dems knuckle under, it of course will just validate the GOP position of just being obstructionist assholes. But they are using the debt ceiling to call the Dem bluff. And they have built into the modern Conservative pollical movement a total disregard for ethical or moral standing, or any kind of responsibility for their actions. It is the current *definition* of "conservatism", so they don't really have a downside to pay that has already not being absorbed into the basic ethos of the GOP.

I am really not sure how the Dems should respond to this.

Progressive Dems are also being douchebags though.

They are refusing to vote for reconciliation unless it includes the 3.5 trillion "human infrastructure" bill which notably Sinema and Manchin in the Senate have refused to vote for (because it's a crazy amount of money).

What Dems should do is simple.  They should vote for the bipartisan real infrastructure bill, include the debt limit, declare victory and go home.

There is no reason for reconciliation though. It has nothing to do with anything.

The "bipartisan" bill does not have progressive support.

Again, this has nothing to do with the debt ceiling. The conservatives are using it as blackmail so they can force their minority legislation through. The issues are not related.

And this kind of response is why this complete bullshit works. This is why the Dems should just ditch the filibuster if it is going to be used in this manner.

The bipartisan bill does have progressive support - as part of a larger package.  It's not that the progressives want to vote down the infrastructure bill.

[The Brain]

The bipartisan bill does have progressive support - as part of a larger package.

Ah yes, the perverted arts.

[The Minsky Moment]

I always find it interesting people assume that the debt ceiling being "gone" would just mean the President (or SecTreas) could issue as much debt as they wanted.

That just isn't the case. The core issue isn't the debt ceiling law, it is the Constitutional provision that only Congress can issue new debt. The debt ceiling is actually a statutory grant of Congressional authority to the executive. If the ceiling itself was done away with, it'd revert to the state we had before we had a debt ceiling--specific acts of Congress would be required approving every series of debt issuance. The core issue is our country vests both appropriations/taxing AND debt issuance in the legislature, and also doesn't require the legislature to issue appropriate debt to cover its budgets. Most other countries the rough equivalent of the SecTreas just has a legal authority (vested in the executive) to issue such debt as is necessary for government operations.

There is no magic fix for that by getting rid of the debt ceiling, nor is the problem caused by the existence of the debt ceiling.

31 USC s. 3102 provides that the "Secretary of the Treasury may borrow on the credit of the United States Government amounts necessary for expenditures authorized by law and may issue bonds of the Government for the amounts borrowed."  Section 3103 gives the same authority to issue notes. Thus, by statute, Congress authorized the Executive to issue debt as needed for authorized expenditures.

However, that broad authority is limited by the debt ceiling, contained in section 3101.  So if you got rid of 3101, the problem would go away.

[jimmy olsen]

I am genuinely unsure how the Dems should be handling this politically.

The GOP is being complete douchebags. They are using the fililbuster to stop any vote on raising the debt ceiling from coming to the floor, and just telling the Dems to handle it through reconciliation. This is a tactical move on their part, that has nothing to do with any principal at all, other then straight out obstructionism.

Should the Dems knuckle under, it of course will just validate the GOP position of just being obstructionist assholes. But they are using the debt ceiling to call the Dem bluff. And they have built into the modern Conservative pollical movement a total disregard for ethical or moral standing, or any kind of responsibility for their actions. It is the current *definition* of "conservatism", so they don't really have a downside to pay that has already not being absorbed into the basic ethos of the GOP.

I am really not sure how the Dems should respond to this.

Progressive Dems are also being douchebags though.

They are refusing to vote for reconciliation unless it includes the 3.5 trillion "human infrastructure" bill which notably Sinema and Manchin in the Senate have refused to vote for (because it's a crazy amount of money).

It's less than half what defense spending will be over the same time.

[grumbler]

31 USC s. 3102 provides that the "Secretary of the Treasury may borrow on the credit of the United States Government amounts necessary for expenditures authorized by law and may issue bonds of the Government for the amounts borrowed."  Section 3103 gives the same authority to issue notes. Thus, by statute, Congress authorized the Executive to issue debt as needed for authorized expenditures.

However, that broad authority is limited by the debt ceiling, contained in section 3101.  So if you got rid of 3101, the problem would go away.

Yes.  The debt ceiling is a totally artificial measure, designed by Congress to assuage Congressional guilt over Congressional cowardice.  Congresscritters and Senators want above all to be re-elected, and to do so they woo the votes of those that want them to spend metric fucktons of money, those who don't want to pay taxes for the spending, and those who worry about borrowing the metric fucktons of money needed to spend wildly without countervailing taxation.  So they spend and put up some bullshit "debt celling" as a fig leaf for their fiscal irresponsibility.

[grumbler]

BTW, the last time this issue came up the Democratic minority refused to vote to lift the debt ceiling, but also acknowledged that it would be wildly irresponsible to filibuster it.  The Republicans passed it on their own.

[Razgovory]

I'm tired of this stupid game.  Let's play hungry, hungry hippos instead.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I always find it interesting people assume that the debt ceiling being "gone" would just mean the President (or SecTreas) could issue as much debt as they wanted.

That just isn't the case. The core issue isn't the debt ceiling law, it is the Constitutional provision that only Congress can issue new debt. The debt ceiling is actually a statutory grant of Congressional authority to the executive. If the ceiling itself was done away with, it'd revert to the state we had before we had a debt ceiling--specific acts of Congress would be required approving every series of debt issuance. The core issue is our country vests both appropriations/taxing AND debt issuance in the legislature, and also doesn't require the legislature to issue appropriate debt to cover its budgets. Most other countries the rough equivalent of the SecTreas just has a legal authority (vested in the executive) to issue such debt as is necessary for government operations.

There is no magic fix for that by getting rid of the debt ceiling, nor is the problem caused by the existence of the debt ceiling.

31 USC s. 3102 provides that the "Secretary of the Treasury may borrow on the credit of the United States Government amounts necessary for expenditures authorized by law and may issue bonds of the Government for the amounts borrowed."  Section 3103 gives the same authority to issue notes. Thus, by statute, Congress authorized the Executive to issue debt as needed for authorized expenditures.

However, that broad authority is limited by the debt ceiling, contained in section 3101.  So if you got rid of 3101, the problem would go away.

I was unaware of that, but doesn't materially change what I said in any real sense. The core issue is that Congress, not the executive, has constitutional power to issue debt. Only through a statutory grant to the executive can the executive issue debt. It appears they did this back in 1982 with the law you quoted, but I'll note that same law was passed some 70 years after the debt ceiling first came into existence. So Congress did not write 3102/3103 in a vacuum, it was understood in the context of a debt ceiling still existing. Certainly if 3101 was written out of law and 3102/3103 were left in place, Congress would be choosing to essentially grant SecTreas, in perpetuity, the authority to issue debt as needed to cover the mandates of appropriation. Which would be a good thing, but it'd still have to be a deliberate choice by Congress, and it would still represent an unprecedented expansion of the executive's power to issue debt. It would not be a return to a status quo ante in which the evil Congress historically didn't control debt, that reading that is frequently put out there by the leftists anytime people start crying about the debt ceiling is ahistorical.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I am genuinely unsure how the Dems should be handling this politically.

The GOP is being complete douchebags. They are using the fililbuster to stop any vote on raising the debt ceiling from coming to the floor, and just telling the Dems to handle it through reconciliation. This is a tactical move on their part, that has nothing to do with any principal at all, other then straight out obstructionism.

Should the Dems knuckle under, it of course will just validate the GOP position of just being obstructionist assholes. But they are using the debt ceiling to call the Dem bluff. And they have built into the modern Conservative pollical movement a total disregard for ethical or moral standing, or any kind of responsibility for their actions. It is the current *definition* of "conservatism", so they don't really have a downside to pay that has already not being absorbed into the basic ethos of the GOP.

I am really not sure how the Dems should respond to this.

Progressive Dems are also being douchebags though.

They are refusing to vote for reconciliation unless it includes the 3.5 trillion "human infrastructure" bill which notably Sinema and Manchin in the Senate have refused to vote for (because it's a crazy amount of money).

What Dems should do is simple.  They should vote for the bipartisan real infrastructure bill, include the debt limit, declare victory and go home.

This is defective in a couple ways.

1. Congress can pass like three reconciliation bills per session. One for each "type" of bill that can be passed through reconciliation: a revenue bill, a spending bill, and a debt limit increase bill. So under extant reconciliation rules you could pass a "clean" debt ceiling increase as its entire own reconciliation bill. However there's a lot of procedural elements to that, and it is true that because we've pushed it up to the point we have, it's probably not terribly easy to get a "clean" debt limit reconciliation bill through by the deadline. Although McConnell has offered to let the Democrats suspend the debt ceiling until December to give them more room on reconciliation, likely some sign that the pressure campaign Democrats have funneled through the business community had some impact--and it gives McConnell more cover if Democrats do nothing and let the ceiling get breached. So the passage or refusal to pass the 3.5 trillion human infrastructure bill through reconciliation, isn't intrinsically tied to a separate "clean" debt limit increase via reconciliation. However note that reconciliation bills have to fall within three broad categories as I mentioned, and I think one of the issues is like you can't cross-legislate on them, although I'm no parliamentarian and it gets complex--in theory if Democrats want to pass (or at least keep the fiction of being able to pass) a human infrastructure bill through reconciliation but also want to pass a separate debt limit increase via reconciliation, it'd have to be hashed out to make sure nothing in the 3.5 trillion bill could be considered a debt limit bill by the parliamentarian, or it could gum things up. At the end of the day though, I think if the Democrats take McConnell's offer to suspend the ceiling until December they'll have all the time they need to get a clean debt limit reconciliation bill through all the various rules and processes of Congress. I do not think they have enough time right now, and in fact there's even some risk the "October 18th" deadline could be optimistic and the ability of Treasury to keep paying all its obligations could expire unexpectedly early, so Congress actually has no real time to act now.

2. Your proposal of adding the debt ceiling increase to the House version of the bipartisan infrastructure bill is a non-starter. If the House passes a version of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that is materially different from the Senate version, the full Senate would have to re-vote on it, and the Republicans would filibuster and refuse to hold a vote, thus tanking the entirety of the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I honestly suspect at least part of the reason Democratic Congressional leadership has been basically immobile on potentially rolling out a reconciliation debt limit increase, is they probably would like to force Sinema and Manchin to basically concede to a new erosion of the filibuster, and get them on board to remove filibuster as an option on debt limit increases. Both Senators are deeply in bed with the very Chamber of Commerce types who are currently pressuring Republicans to not fuck up the country with the debt ceiling, so there is some possibility such a thing could work more effectively than the doomed Progressive effort to get Manchin and Sinema to nuke the filibuster more broadly.

If you remove debt limit increases from the purview of legislation that can be filibustered, it does become one less bullet of disorder that the GOP can use anytime they're in the minority, and serves the broader Democratic goal of weakening the filibuster in general.

[Syt]

From reddit.