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Title: Tim Geithner: 14th Amendment Says Debt 'Shall Not Be Questioned'
Source:
huffingtonpost
URL Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/ ... r-14th-amendment_n_887925.html
Published: Jul 10, 2011
Author: C-SPAN
Post Date: 2013-10-07 22:37:48 by Itistoolate
Keywords: None
Views: 183
Comments: 8
Tim Geithner: 14th Amendment Says Debt 'Shall Not Be Questioned' WASHINGTON -- At a briefing with reporters on Wednesday, President Obama was asked whether he believed that the debt ceiling was constitutional or whether the 14th Amendment required the government to meet all of its obligations regardless of the debt-limit statute. Obama dodged the question. "I'm not a Supreme Court Justice, so I'm not going to put my constitutional law professor hat on here," he said about the debt ceiling and a question on the war in Libya. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, however, is less afraid of wearing that hat. At a Politico Playbook breakfast on May 25, Geithner was asked by host Mike Allen about the negotiations over default and the debt ceiling. "I think there are some people who are pretending not to understand it, who think there's leverage for them in threatening a default," Geithner said. "I don't understand it as a negotiating position. I mean really think about it, you're going to say that-- can I read you the 14th amendment?" Geithner whipped out his handy pocket-sized Constitution. Allen tried to brush it aside. "We'll stipulate the 14th Amendment," he said. "No, I want to read this one thing," Geithner insisted. "It's paper clipped!" Allen observed, noting that Geithner's copy of the Constitution was clipped so that it would open directly to the passage in question. "'The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payments of pension and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion' -- this is the important thing -- 'shall not be questioned," Geithner read. Watch Geithner: "So as a negotiating strategy you say: 'If you don't do things my way, I'm going to force the United States to default--not pay the legacy of bills accumulated by my predecessors in Congress.' It's not a credible negotiating strategy, and it's not going to happen," Geithner insisted. On Tuesday, HuffPost reported that rank-and-file Senate Democrats are increasingly looking at the 14th Amendment as a solution to the default impasse. The Treasury Department says that on Aug. 2, the government will no longer have the ability to meet its obligations without raising the debt ceiling and will default, sending capital and bond markets into chaos. The conservative blog RedState suggested Thursday that if Obama embarked on such a course, House Republicans would be wise to begin impeachment proceedings. The Democratic-controlled Senate would be unlikely to go along, however, embroiling Washington in a constitutional crisis. Republicans impeached a Democratic president in 1998 and suffered politically for the overreach. Impeaching the president for insisting on paying past bills on time could be equally devastating for the GOP. Nearly a month before Geithner read the Constitution to a gathering of reporters, Bruce Bartlett floated the option of 14th Amendment invocation in The Fiscal Times. The news that Senate Democrats were considering the option was reported on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Current TV Tuesday. Watch: 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 7.
#7. To: Itistoolate, All (#0)
(Edited)
AYFKM? [Are You Freaking Kidding Me (polite form)]: The 14th Amendment Debt Ceiling Phrase Is About The Confederacy During The Civil War! They fail to read the entire sentence [and Amendment] The next sentence starts out with “But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States”. This was passed right after the civil war and it is saying all debt occurred in the aid of the union forces shall be valid while all debts incurred for the confederate forces shall not be valid. In other words, the constitution was dissolving all debts that the southern states incurred during the civil war and this amendment essentially made them invalid. The poor suckers who loaned money to the confederacy will not be getting paid back. Same principle applies to the dupes who think they can validly accumulate debt for us through their insurrections/rebellions against the Constitution of the United States [i.e. violating the General Welfare by imposing debt slavery, etc., etc., etc.] Edited for highlighting and to expand the last sentence.
#8. To: All (#7)
(Edited)
14th Amendment [is not a] License to spend Pic: The 14th Amendment didn't stop FDR from defaulting on the debt that was accumulated from World War I, yet today the 14th is thought to give the President unilateral borrowing power under the pretense of an emergency. It seems that the Constitution means [to Progressives/Commies whatever they] want it to mean. This latest talk about the 14th Amendment is merely a trial balloon, a warm-up for the next "emergency" or undeclared, unfunded war. A Short History of US Credit Defaults: The [WWI/"Great War"] Liberty Bond Default of 1934 [for example] Antideficiency Act - Wikipedia [Applicable daily, not just during gov shutdowns.] Edited for capitalization and punctuation.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestThere is one trick that the progressive [Commie] left likes to use which is to fragmentize the constitution in order to get the meaning that they want.
Replies to Comment # 7. Why should [Obama or Geithner] suddenly care about the law anyway? Top lawyers in the Pentagon and the Department of Justice told Obama his actions in Libya violated the War Powers Act, ... Amazingly, the House flatly and unequivocally refused to authorize the President’s war with Libya, ...
...implements the provisions of Article One of the United States Constitution, Section 9, Clause 7 (the "power of the purse"), which provides that "No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law." [i.e. Constitutional Law]
End Trace Mode for Comment # 7.