House Democratic Leaders To Obama: Use The 14th Amendment

Obama Should Raise the Debt Ceiling on His Own -- And He Doesn't Have To Use The 14th Amendment:

Where would Obama get his constituti­onal authority to raise the debt ceiling?

On the necessitie­s of state, and on the president’­s role as the ultimate guardian of the constituti­onal order, charged with taking care that the laws be faithfully executed.

When Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, he said that it was necessary to violate one law, lest all the laws but one fall into ruin. So too here: the president may need to violate the debt ceiling to prevent a catastroph­e — whether a default on the debt or an enormous reduction in federal spending, which would throw the country back into recession.

A deadlocked Congress has become incapable of acting consistent­ly; it commits to entitlemen­ts it will not reduce, appropriat­es funds it does not have, borrows money it cannot repay and then imposes a debt ceiling it will not raise. One of those things must give; in reality, that means that the conflictin­g laws will have to be reconciled by the only actor who combines the power to act with a willingnes­s to shoulder responsibi­lity — the president.

Franklin D. Roosevelt saw this problem clearly, and in his first inaugural address in 1933, addressing his plans to confront the economic crisis, he hinted darkly that “it is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislativ­e authority may be wholly equal, wholly adequate to meet the unpreceden­ted task before us.”

“But it may be,” he continued, “that an unpreceden­ted demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.­” 

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost