Taking a break from posting about my chapbook Hearts to update you on the United States’ struggle on the debt ceiling.
Both houses of Congress passed a deal agreed to by President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy which suspends the debt ceiling until January 2025, after the next Congressional and presidential elections. It also limits some spending over the next two years and makes changes to some programs, such as food assistance and environmental project permitting.
While I’m grateful not to have the risk of default and national/global economic consequences hanging over our heads for the next two years, I would have much preferred for Congress to have passed a clean debt ceiling bill months ago. Then, they could have debated budgetary bills as part of the usual preparation for the fiscal year that begins October first. I also prefer raising taxes on the wealthiest individual and corporate taxpayers, in order to increase spending on social needs, while decreasing the extremely high military budget. (The CBS program 60 Minutes recently aired a piece investigating part of the reason.)
One of the absurd aspects of the bill is the inclusion of special permitting and judicial review provisions for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a partially complected methane pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia that has been held up over its poor adherence to environmental regulations. It’s a pet project of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, which he has tried and failed to include in past legislation. My heart goes out to the people and places along the pipeline route that will suffer damage because of its construction. It also flies in the face of our need, in light of global warming, to stop new fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure projects.
The best course of action for our financial future would be to eliminate the debt ceiling altogether. It seems to be in contradiction with the 14th Amendment, which states, “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” Whether this action comes through Congress or the courts, it would at least keep us from going through a similar scenario in the future with Congressional Republicans threatening to damage the economy if they don’t get their way on future budgetary policy.
A sigh of relief for now…
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Joanne Corey 
The constitution gives congress the power to borrow money. They control the funds. That is the way it should be.
The 14th amendment states the debts are value, but does not give the president the power to borrow money to pay them. If the president could borrow money, that would take control of funding away from the congress.
Some of the matters in the bill could gave waited for the budget debate. Other matters went further than the budget. Best to get what the majority is willing to pass when you can, without waiting until later. Or, as someone said, never let a crises go to waste. Democracy is a rough game. It only works if everyone is willing to accept the vote of the majority. Two things never pleasant to watch being made. sausage and laws.
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The Constitution gives Congress the power to pass the appropriations but it is up to the executive branch to carry out the expenditures. Because Congress hasn’t passed laws that raise the required amount in taxes, borrowing is necessary to pay the bills that Congress has incurred. The application of the 14th Amendment has never been tested in this way in court but it seems that Congress can’t both direct the Executive Branch to spend money and prevent it from paying its debts at the same time. The reason that clause came about was that some southern states were balking at repaying the debts incurred during the Civil War. It seems clear that it’s Congress’s responsibility to pay those debts, not threaten default as a bargaining chip.
I actually would appreciate it if the US became more democratic, in terms of majority rule. Like popular vote for president rather than electoral college, which gives more weight to less populous states and discounts all the votes for the loser of the popular vote (in most states). If there had been popular vote for president, there probably would not have been a George W. Bush presidency nor a Donald Trump one.
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I would agree on a popular direct vote for the president but only if there was a run off between the top two candidates got a majority of the votes. There is a difference in winning the popular vote, getting the most votes, first past the post, and getting the majority of the votes. We have had a number of presidents who won the popular vote, getting a plurality, and getting the majority, fifty per cent plus one vote.
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That’s an interesting concept. Another option would be to use ranked choice voting, so that there would only need to be one round. Whatever change might happen, I think we need to shorten our election process. We have an election and, within days, people are talking about and preparing for the next one.
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Ranked choice voting would work. And a shorter election process would be good. Don’t know of any way do do that.
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Lots of countries have more concentrated election periods. Candidates can’t declare until a given date for an election a couple of months in the future. The US would probably need a round of primaries and then the general. Of course, it would be a major shift in our political life but might also make our elections much less expensive and cut down on some of the shenanigans.
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One good step would be not to allow any primaries until June or July. We could require they be held in all states on the same day. The way it is now, we are to a large degree letting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina decide who the nominees will be.
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A national primary or several regional ones in close proximity would also mean that candidates need to visit all or, at least, many of the states. As it is now, unless you are in an early primary or swing state, you seldom hear from candidates, I would also like primaries to be open, so that independents can weigh in in choosing the candidates for the general. I grew up in an open state and regret that my current state has closed primaries.
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Open primaries should result in favor of candidates in the center- more moderate. Closed primaries may be part of the reason we have such divisions as we have now. There are a lot more things we could change to make our system work better. Or, considering it has lasted this long, maybe. With change, there is always the danger of unintended consequences.
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maybe not.
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True, although I doubt the Constitutional convention had any clue we would be in this state now, given that they didn’t have political parties at the time, voting was much more limited, and fewer offices were decided by direct election.
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