The President Can And Must Invoke 31 USC 3102 To Pay Our National Debts

[helderheid]

There has been some talk that the President can act unilaterally to raise the nation debt limit based on Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which provides in pertinent part that "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned". The argument has been made that since Congress has ALREADY authorized BY LAW each obligation represented in the national debt, by appropriating the funds for various expenditures, any overall "debt limit" is artificially redundant. It would be like writing a bunch of checks and then refusing to deposit the funds in your account to cover them. While a constitutional challenge of the debt limit law may be a defensible argument in the spirit of the 14th Amendment it is not unequivocally compelling, as the 14th Amendment does not expressly authorize what proponents are asking the President to do.

With this context, it is astonishing that apparently nobody has bothered to read the text of Public Debt Law of 1941 itself, embodied in 31 USC 3101, which is what codifies a national debt limit. That law states that

"The face amount of obligations issued under this chapter and the face amount of obligations whose principal and interest are guaranteed by the United States Government (except guaranteed obligations held by the Secretary of the Treasury) may not be more than . . . "

Please take careful note of the words "EXCEPT guaranteed obligations held by the Secretary of The Treasury". By undeniably clear law as passed by Congress, such obligations are NOT constrained by any so-called debt limit. Now all you have to do is run your finger down to the very next section 31 USC 3102 and you will read

"With the approval of the President, the Secretary of the Treasury may borrow on the credit of the United States Government amounts necessary for expenditures authorized by law . . . "

By this section Congress gives the President the EXPRESS, inherent and unilateral authority to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to incur obligations to cover all expenditures authorized by law, which is to say the sum of the appropriations bills Congress has already passed. And as we have just so clearly demonstrated such obligations are immune from any so-called debt ceiling limitation. Surely there is some White House attorney smart enough to figure this all out as we have.

More and take action here:

http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1082.php

[elocs]

1. You should ring him up & clue him in because I'm sure he is totally unaware of the remedies

available to him in this situation. Then again, maybe he just failed to keep you informed of his intended moves at the very end.

[helderheid]

2. I hope he's waiting until the last minute.

[Gman]

3. Good find, but if you found it just now

and I'm reading the text of it now for the first time, you can rest very, very assured they know this and this is likely their ace in the hole. There's lots of people up there who's job it is to know these things.

[helderheid]

4. I agree wholeheartedly!

[unblock]

5. "except guaranteed obligation HELD BY the secretary of treasury"

this refers to treasuries OWNED by the secretary of treasury.

so if the limit were four trillion dollars, there could be five trillion in treasuries issued provided that the treasury was sitting on one trillion of it.

that's all that exception is saying.

sorry, no silver bullet here.

[helderheid]

6. Damn. What's your take on 14.4?

[unblock]

7. not sure it's much help.

it says there's no questioning the debt's valid, but that doesn't say anything about how who should go about getting the money to pay it when.

arguably treasury can no more borrow beyond the debt ceiling than the irs can tax beyond the established rates.

i think all it really means is that anyone who doesn't get paid can sue the government and the courts can make the government pay but in practice the government can keep paying obligations, late, but before any court can tell them to "solve" the problem.

[onenote]

8. I can't believe the level of naiveté shown by some here

Apparently some people here are now convinced that there is (and has been all along) this magic bullet that no one knew about, or more likely, some people knew about but pretended not to so they could spring it at the last moment.

Uhhh...the law in question has been amended literally dozens of times. There are countless members of Congress and staffers, to say nothing of Treasury officials, who are familiar with this statutory provision and what it can, and more importantly, cannot do.

As others have explained here and on other threads, this provision is being misread by those who think its a solution. Its not. The President and every member of the Democratic caucus and all those Treasury officials have not been sitting on this just so they could go through the craziness of the last few weeks.

When something seems too good to be true --- it usually isn't true.

[helderheid]

9. Aw, gee tanks!

:hi:

[helderheid]

10. Thanks even. Clumsy fingers.

[mmonk]

11. Very good helderheid. Sounds good to me.

[helderheid]

12. I hope so.