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Lawrence Tribe's Change of Mind on the Debt Limit

bilby said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
That is your example?
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Yes, it is.
Jason Harvestdancer said:
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
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My apologies; I was unaware that you had such a well informed and deeply considered rebuttal, and having reviewed it in detail, am happy to admit that I was in error.

:rolleyesa:
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You want a more elaborate rebuttal, give a better example.

It is understood that you think Austrian Economics is "right wing" and the Conservative Party is "right wing" and everything that is "right wing" is exactly like everything else that is "right wing". That's wrong though.
 
Copernicus said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
You want a more elaborate rebuttal, give a better example.
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If you feel that way, then the better response is to say why you think it is a poor example and what you think would be a better example.
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It is understood that you think Austrian Economics is "right wing" and the Conservative Party is "right wing" and everything that is "right wing" is exactly like everything else that is "right wing". That's wrong though.
 
Since people insist I be more serious than they are, here goes.

Wikipedia: Conservative Party (UK): Policies

The Conservative Party believes that a free market and individual achievement are the primary factors behind economic prosperity. A leading economic theory advocated by Conservatives is supply-side economics. This theory holds that reduced income tax rates increase growth and enterprise (although a reduction in the budget deficit has sometimes taken priority over cutting taxes). The party has recently focused on the social market economy in Britain, promoting a free market for competition with social balance to create fairness. This has included curbs on the banking sector, enterprise zones to revive regions in Britain and grand infrastructure projects such as high-speed rail.
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A bit of a mess but let us dissect it. The first sentence says they are free market, the second sentence says they are not free market. The third sentence is an elaboration on the second. The fourth and fifth sentences say they are not free market.

Just for elaboration, the fourth sentence references "social market economy".

]Wikipedia: Social Market Economy

The social market economy (SOME; German: soziale Marktwirtschaft), also called Rhine capitalism, Rhine-Alpine capitalism, the Rhenish model, and social capitalism, is a socioeconomic model combining a free-market capitalist economic system alongside social policies and enough regulation to establish both fair competition within the market and generally a welfare state. It is sometimes classified as a regulated market economy.
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A managed economy. Who here actually thinks that a managed economy is consistent with Austrian Economics?

Well, many. Because they see the Conservative Party UK as "right wing" and Austrian Economics as "right wing", and that means they are exactly the same.
 
Jason Harvestdancer said:
bilby said:
Austerity economics is batshit insane.

Every time it's been tried, it's led to economic ruin.
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I'm sure you have examples of that ... not.
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The UK, Spain, Portugal, and most famously Greece.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Austerity: a failed experiment on the people of Europe

Many governments in Europe, either of their own volition or at the behest of the international financial institutions, have adopted stringent austerity policies in response to the financial crisis. By contrast, the USA launched a financial stimulus. The ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Jason Harvestdancer said:
bilby said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
That is your example?
Click to expand...
Yes, it is.
Jason Harvestdancer said:
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Click to expand...
My apologies; I was unaware that you had such a well informed and deeply considered rebuttal, and having reviewed it in detail, am happy to admit that I was in error.

:rolleyesa:
Click to expand...
You want a more elaborate rebuttal, give a better example.

It is understood that you think Austrian Economics is "right wing" and the Conservative Party is "right wing" and everything that is "right wing" is exactly like everything else that is "right wing". That's wrong though.
Click to expand...
I haven't mentioned Austrian Economics; The Conservative Party is right wing; And nothing I said implies, suggests, or requires that "everything that is 'right wing' is exactly like [or even particularly similar to] everything else that is 'right wing'".

You appear to have made a minor reading error, and leapt (with both feet firmly in mouth) to a very badly erroneous, and very foolishly condescending, response to something I never said at all.

Austerity ≠ Austrian

Not even to someone who is accused of thinking that all right wing ideas are indistinguishable.
 
Laurence Tribe seems to believe that the Executive Branch has the constitutional authority to ignore congress. :ROFLMAO:

Edit: I haven't even driven past a law school much less been to one and I know better than that.
 
Gospel said:
Laurence Tribe seems to believe that the Executive Branch has the constitutional authority to ignore congress. :ROFLMAO:
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Congress passed a spending bill. Biden is authorizing the spending Congress already approved. It is against the law for him to not do that.

This isn't even a Hobson's choice. There is no option here that is legal. Certainly the spirit of the law says pay the damn bill.
 
Gospel said:
Laurence Tribe seems to believe that the Executive Branch has the constitutional authority to ignore congress. :ROFLMAO:

Edit: I haven't even driven past a law school much less been to one and I know better than that.
Click to expand...

If you believe that that is what Tribe recommended, then you didn't understand his argument. He was saying that a president has no choice but to uphold laws like the debt limit and that he cannot ignore the constitutional authority of Congress. Furthermore, a president cannot declare any law unconstitutional. The problem is that he has no choice but to pay the bills that Congress lawfully required him to incur under Congressional authority. Moreover, the 14th amendment pretty clearly requires him to do nothing to put the integrity of the public debt in question. So his hands are tied. Unfortunately, the debt limit is a different law that requires him to stop issuing debt that would allow him to fulfill his duty to pay the bills. In other words, Congress has put him in the position of both having to pay US debts and not pay US debts. Faced with that contradiction, what does a president do? He cannot both uphold the law and not uphold the law.

Tribe argued that there was a precedent for this kind of situation, and that went back to Lincoln's dilemma when faced with widespread civil rebellion, which he was required by law to suppress. He could not honor the law of habeas corpus and at the same time incarcerate large numbers of rebels without bringing them up on charges and trying all of them individually in courts of law. So, faced with a contradiction in the law, Lincoln had to choose which of the laws he would obey. He had no other choice. Hence, he chose to obey the law that he considered in the best interest of nation and temporarily suspend habeas corpus. Lincoln did not repeal habeas corpus. He suspended it temporarily until the national crisis was past.

Tribe's argument is not that Biden ignore the debt limit law, but that he temporarily suspend it until a time at which Congress figures out how to meet it obligation (under the 14th amendment, especially) to fund the debt. That could be through higher taxes or increased borrowing, but they have a responsibility to provide some means to pay the debt. Don't blame Biden for suspending a law that puts him in an untenable position to fulfill his duty to the country. Blame Congress for putting him in that position. They have to fix it. The current compromise fixes the problem by expanding his authority to increase the debt rather than raise new taxes (which would be more responsible). If Congress doesn't approve the compromise by passing a new law, then we are back to square one and Biden will likely have to suspend the debt limit law.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
There is no option here that is legal. Certainly the spirit of the law says pay the damn bill.
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It would be hard to find any organization that could survive bylaws that say “if you don’t want to pay your bills, burn the place down”.

Copernicus said:
If Congress doesn't approve the compromise by passing a new law, then we are back to square one and Biden will likely have to suspend the debt limit law.
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At that point, we can all look back
and agree that we all would have been better off if he had done that at the outset.
 
Elixir said:
Copernicus said:
If Congress doesn't approve the compromise by passing a new law, then we are back to square one and Biden will likely have to suspend the debt limit law.
Click to expand...
At that point, we can all look back
and agree that we all would have been better off if he had done that at the outset.
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I can understand why Biden was reluctant to do what Tribe suggested or even to say that he would do it if pushed to the limit. First of all, it would have had some unpredictable effect on the fraught political situation, not to mention the markets, and he didn't want to create a situation that might spin beyond his control. That's commendable in a man who has been an irremediable gaffe machine in the past. He knows that his words have serious consequences (unlike someone like Donald Trump and his big yap). Secondly, Biden would have been forced to create debt for the first time that was not explicitly authorized under Congressional or Constitutional authority. What would be the interest in people buying Treasury bonds under such circumstances? What kind of interest rates would he have to offer? Could creditors be assured that they would be paid back in the future? It would be a dangerous precedent, and our creditworthiness as a nation would likely take a huge blow as a result. In the end, he and his advisors thought it more advisable to try to reach a deal with the House Republicans.

I had forgotten, but this same kind of situation happened during the Obama administration, and Obama caved in rather than face having to go with a 14th Amendment solution. It was a messy surrender to House Republican overreach, but it turned out not to cause as much damage as it could have. It did cause a lot of headaches, however.

See:

Obama agreed to $2.1 trillion in spending cuts to end 2011 debt ceiling crisis. Here’s what happened next.​

 
Biden got a better deal than I expected in many ways. McCarthy did not agree to raise the debt ceiling. He agreed to suspend it until 2025. IOW, no more debt ceiling drama at least until 2025. Maybe they'll get used to it and finally just do away with the crazy law entirely.

What's in US debt ceiling deal and who won?​


Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC pointed out something else that I hadn't thought about. Biden said that he wouldn't negotiate, but then he turned around and negotiated the debt ceiling. This looked to me and a lot of other people like Biden had made a mistake. He bluffed and McCarthy called his bluff. And that's one of the main points that McCarthy made to his caucus--that he had forced Biden's hand. My own Congressman, Adam Smith, has publicly taken Biden to task for this, saying that it is one of his one big criticisms of Biden. However, O'Donnell, who has worked as a Congressional aide and been in many negotiations, said that Biden had effectively snookered McCarthy, who is relatively inexperienced at negotiating. O'Donnell said he thought that Biden's strategy was always to negotiate, so he wasn't giving away anything by agreeing to do it. OTOH, McCarthy walked away with what he thought was a prize concession and effectively abandoned all his leverage by falling for it. Meanwhile, Biden walked away with a suspension of the debt ceiling throughout the remainder of his term, and preserved many of the spending initiatives that Democrats had pushed through when they had full control of both houses.
 
I don't think McCarthy wanted to go as far as Roy and the "Freedom" caucus wanted to... but oddly enough, I haven't read anything from Gaetz yet. The "Freedom" Caucus has the power to prevent this by expelling McCarthy. But they don't seem to be posturing to do that, before it is passed.

I think McCarthy wanted to be a dick, the "Freedom" Caucus wants to... I have no idea what they want.... just to pretend to be radicals? Actually be radicals? But McCarthy walks away from this with a black eye. The imbecile Biden wins again by flattening non-military discretionary spending, which is kind of what was already in his budget to begin with! And the ceiling is paused past next year, when the GOP will likely take the Senate, but the Dems probably regain the House. The GOP gains almost nothing... the Dems don't get much, but don't give up much, which is their victory in this. And to be fair, it shouldn't be a victory, this should have been a boring event that ended several months ago.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
I don't think McCarthy wanted to go as far as Roy and the "Freedom" caucus wanted to... but oddly enough, I haven't read anything from Gaetz yet. The "Freedom" Caucus has the power to prevent this by expelling McCarthy. But they don't seem to be posturing to do that, before it is passed.
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www.newsweek.com

Matt Gaetz joins growing rebellion over McCarthy's debt ceiling deal

The Florida congressman looks set to join several other GOP lawmakers in opposing Kevin McCarthy's bill.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
I don't think McCarthy wanted to go as far as Roy and the "Freedom" caucus wanted to... but oddly enough, I haven't read anything from Gaetz yet. The "Freedom" Caucus has the power to prevent this by expelling McCarthy. But they don't seem to be posturing to do that, before it is passed.

I think McCarthy wanted to be a dick, the "Freedom" Caucus wants to... I have no idea what they want.... just to pretend to be radicals? Actually be radicals? But McCarthy walks away from this with a black eye. The imbecile Biden wins again by flattening non-military discretionary spending, which is kind of what was already in his budget to begin with! And the ceiling is paused past next year, when the GOP will likely take the Senate, but the Dems probably regain the House. The GOP gains almost nothing... the Dems don't get much, but don't give up much, which is their victory in this. And to be fair, it shouldn't be a victory, this should have been a boring event that ended several months ago.
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I do think that getting McCarthy to agree to suspend the debt limit, as opposed to capping it again, was a major victory for Biden. If this passes, it means that Republicans will have less leverage to try to damage his reelection by damaging the country. The suspension will last two years--until 2025! That isn't as good as repealing the idiotic debt ceiling law, but maybe people will start to get used to not having to raise it all the time. Congress will have to find some way to rein in spending when they actually pass appropriations bills, not when it comes time to pay off the debt that they incurred in the first place.
 
I think McCarthy gains from the two year agreement as much as Biden does. It provides the "Freedom" Caucus less leverage too. How messed up is the GOP that McCarthy conceding to Biden is small victory for himself?
 
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