Underpaid Genius

So, it seems that Boehner is start to show his cards to Obama on the fiscal cliff struggle: he is threatening more debt ceiling blackmail, saying that in exchange for tax raises on the rich, ‘there is a price for everything’. This is being read as a soon-to-be-made-obvious threat to block the raising of the debt ceiling. 

As many suggested last year, Obama should simply raise the debt limit by executive order, and many democrats agree:

Debt limit: The other fiscal fight - Carrie Budoff Brown and Jake Sherman via POLITICO.com

Congressional Democrats are pushing Obama to hold firm. They’ve even privately suggested Obama consider raising the debt ceiling without Congress. Their argument is that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution says the “validity of the public debt … shall not be questioned,” which means the president can raise the cap on his own.

In fact, at the tail end of a news conference on Nov. 15, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said as much publicly, although the offhanded remark largely flew under the radar.

“Well, I am with the 11th Amendment, so, is it the 11th Amendment that — 14th?” Pelosi said. “Whatever it is, I am with the Constitution of the United States.”

Nothing raises the ire of Republicans in Congress like the specter of Obama taking matters into his own hands. If the White House goes that route and raises the debt ceiling by executive order, Boehner and his leadership team would likely take immediate legal action to halt the debt ceiling increase, sources familiar with his thinking said.

If Obama sidestepped the congress, we’d be in the Supreme Court in days, and it’s uncharted territory. The court might simply decide not to hear the case:

Debt-limit standoff: Top Democrats revive 14th Amendment option to raise ceiling - Brad Plumer and Aaron Blake via The Washington Post

But many legal scholars are suggesting that Obama could do it [unilaterally raise the debt limit].

Jack Balkin, a law professor at Yale, has laid out how this would work. At some point after Tuesday’s deadline, Obama would face the demands of multiple contradicting laws. On the one hand, the government is required to pay out money that has already been appropriated. On the other, it would not be allowed to float new debt to cover its obligations.

So, Balkin notes, Obama “has a constitutional duty to treat at least one of the laws as unconstitutional as applied to the current circumstances.” And the wording of Section 4 of the 14th Amendment suggests that the debt ceiling would have to give way: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned.”

If Obama interpreted that clause to mean that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional and authorized the Treasury Department to begin issuing new debt, it’s not clear that anyone could stop him. As Jeffrey Rosen writes in the New Republic, individual members of Congress would not have standing to sue — Congress would need to pass a joint resolution, which is unlikely given Democratic control of the Senate.

It is also unlikely that individual taxpayers or bondholders would have standing.

“The most likely outcome is that the Supreme Court would refuse to hear the case,” Rosen argues. And if a suit did make it through, Rosen adds, even the conservative justices would probably rule in Obama’s favor — at least if they held to their judicial philosophies.

Related articles

• Can Obama Simply Raise the Debt Limit? (underpaidgenius.com)
• 14th Amendment, Section 4: Obama Should Simply Raise The Debt Limit (underpaidgenius.com)
• A Dr Strangelove Moment?  (underpaidgenius.com)
• Republicans Still Dodge Reality on Taxes (nytimes.com)
• There’s No Such Thing as a Free Debt Ceiling. Unless… (prospect.org)
• Oh yeah, the debt ceiling. Yawn. (dailykos.com)

If there is a better proof for the stupidity of the human race, I don’t know what it is. John Boehner, third in line for the presidency, doesn’t believe in global warming, and neither does the GOP clown parade heading to office:

John Broder, Election Brings Global Warming to Forefront

The presumptive new Republican speaker of the House, John A. Boehner of Ohio, has dismissed the idea that carbon dioxide is affecting the climate and has characterized cap and trade and other proposed solutions to global warming as job-killing energy taxes.

He and other Republican leaders in both houses, along with many Democrats and a number of state attorneys general, support measures to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, as it plans to do starting in January.

They will find fervent and well-financed support from business interests that fear the effect of such regulation on their cost of doing business. John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan and now president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said on Wednesday that the new Congress should assert stronger control over E.P.A., which, as he put it, “is getting way outside its authority in trying to regulate that which cannot pass in the legislative process.”

Mr. Obama has clearly narrowed his ambitions on environmental and energy policy, scrapping any hope of enacting comprehensive legislation to deal with climate change and the nation’s dependence on imported oil. He said he was not seeking confrontation with Congress over regulation of greenhouse gases.

“Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way” Mr. Obama said in his press conference Wednesday. “And I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem. And I think the E.P.A. wants help from the legislature on this. I don’t think that, you know, the desire is to somehow be protective of their powers here. I think what they want to do is make sure that the issue’s being dealt with.”

Instead of seeking a broad approach to energy and climate change, Mr. Obama said, he would look for smaller policy bites that could attract Republican support. He said he hoped to generate wide support in the new Congress for further development of electric vehicles, for converting some of the nation’s heavy truck fleet to run on natural gas, for incentives for energy efficiency in buildings and appliances, and for more emphasis on renewable energy and nuclear power. He said such programs lead to innovation and can create thousands of jobs.

Back in May, the Pew folks did a study that showed that the higher the educational level of a democrat, the more likely she’d believe in climate change. The opposite, however, holds with republicans. Magically, the higher their education level, the less likely they are to believe in climate change, or even agree that there is a scientific consensus that climate change is happening because of human activities.

We are definitely headed down the rabbit hole.

This is a place where Obama has got to dig his heels in and howl at the moon, calling the climate change naysayers enemies of the planet and our children’s future. I hope he doesn’t wussy out on this one, meekly trying to get a few concessions for the sake of job creation.

Boehner and his cronies are out to screw us all, paid for by the energy industries.