James Surowiecki, New Yorker - The truth is that the United States doesn’t need, and shouldn’t have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one. There’s no debt limit in the Constitution. And, if Congress really wants to hold down government debt, it already has a way to do so that doesn’t risk economic chaos—namely, the annual budgeting process. The only reason we need to lift the debt ceiling, after all, is to pay for spending that Congress has already authorized. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, we’ll face an absurd scenario in which Congress will have ordered the President to execute two laws that are flatly at odds with each other. If he obeys the debt ceiling, he cannot spend the money that Congress has told him to spend, which is why most government functions will be shut down. Yet if he spends the money as Congress has authorized him to he’ll end up violating the debt ceiling…
You might think that there are benefits to putting negotiators under the gun. But, as the Dutch psychologist Carsten de Dreu has shown, time pressure tends to close minds, not open them. Under time pressure, negotiators tend to rely more on stereotypes and cognitive shortcuts. They don’t consider as wide a range of alternatives, and are more likely to jump to conclusions based on scanty evidence. Time pressure also reduces the chances that an agreement will be what psychologists call “integrative”—taking everyone’s interests and values into account. In fact, by turning dealmaking into a game of chicken, the debt ceiling favors fanaticism.
Felix Salmon, Reuters - For 37 years, the debt ceiling has provided an easy way for the party which isn’t in the White House to posture politically against the party which is in the White House. Even Barack Obama voted against raising it, once. Every one of the dozens of times the debt ceiling was reached, there was a small but non-zero probability that something disastrous would happen. And each time, disaster was, predictably, averted.
3 comments:
This is the first sane comment on the debt ceiling that I have seen.
The debt ceiling is in conflict not only with appropriations but with the constitution. Obama can deem the debt ceiling unconstitutional and ignore it, and he should do so.
And/or, he could put the House and Senate office buildings up for sale and summarily evict the tenants.
And/or, he could give the Congress till midnight to repeal the debt ceiling or face eviction. They have delegated legislative power to him, and they should be brought to understand their mistake.
We'll see if he grows a pair.,
Really? When was unlimited power ever a good thing?
6:14AM: It never was. I would hope that measures directly affecting the Congress in a negative way would encourage the withdrawal of the unconstitutional power which has been foolishly ceded to the President. Fiscal leadership is their bailiwick, and so it must remain.
The 14th amendment also requires the govt. to pay its bills, but the President's lawyers claim that he can't apply that. I don't agree. Jacksonian logic is needed here.
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