That there should be a discussion in the nation's Congress about whether to adjust the debt ceiling so that the United States government may honor financial obligations to its own citizens and foreign creditors - obligations such as previously authorized by the very same Congress - is beyond my comprehension.
While not being an expert in law, on the United States Constitution or otherwise, I nevertheless wonder whether there is a legal basis for the current political carnival.
The United States Constitution, in its Section 8 which deals with Powers of Congress, reads as follows:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Section 8 empowers Congress further:
To borrow money on the credit of the United States.
The Constitution's Section 9 deals with the Limits of Congress and states in part:
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.
When the Constitution grants Congress a power, I find it reasonable to assume that there is also an implied duty associated with this power. The section about "... to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; .....", taken in context with "no ex post facto law shall be passed." would - at least to me - imply that Congress has no business even thinking about defaulting on obligations that, after all, have previously been authorized and passed into law by that very same venerable institution.
The Constitution's empowerment of Congress to "borrow money on the credit of the United States" to me sounds an awful lot like that the nation's founders did not consider the nation's credit as something to be trifled with.
Take note, all ye conservatives who proclaim a wish to return the nation to the purity of its origins of principle.
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