Can Biden, by EO, suspend the debt ceiling rules?

[dutch508]

Star Member Stinky The Clown (63,437 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215880468

A question of ability: Can Biden, by EO, suspend the debt ceiling rules?

Related question: Should he

I heard this talked about briefly on TV today.

I think he should go for it and tell McConnell to eat shit.

 

vsrazdem (2,064 posts)

1. I doubt it. Only congress has power of the purse, not the executive branch.

lagomorph777 (25,865 posts)

2. Agreed. But we should be able to do this in Congress.

I don't think even Manchin/Sinema would actually let us default on the debt.

unblock (49,289 posts)

5. unchartered waters, so not entirely clear. but i have read a few thoughts on the matter

first, in terms of directly having the government borrow more, this is certainly problematic.

that said, it's also problematic to not pay debts or to not pay for things that congress already authorized. one could argue that the executive branch was put in an impossible position, forced to break one thing or another, either raise enough debt to pay the bills or not pay the bills. either would be a violation of duly enacted law.

this is why the whole debt ceiling thing is stupid as hell. it's not a cap on spending, it's a cap on paying for the spending that congress authorized, for things the government already bought. really, how stupid is that. it's like saying we're going to get control of our budget by simply refusing to pay the mortgage. what could go wrong.

the alternative, which seems to be on much stronger legal ground, is to have the treasury mint a trillion dollar coin and use that to give the government enough to pay its bills without having to borrow month.

i think the only reason no one has done this is the optics. and again, the optics are bad only because everyone is so stupid about the whole debt ceiling concept.

 

[landofconfusion80]

People that rely on government handouts to survive probably aren't the best to ask financial advice from. Notice that cutting spending never comes up as an option

[USA4ME]

There’s an easy way for the debt ceiling to be raised: Dems need to compromise with the Republicans. But they don’t want to do that. And leftists aren’t intelligent enough to see it’s their own fault. Therefore, stalemate.

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[Mr Mannn]

Lefty wants a king, a dictator to rule over them.