Reply #106: The 14th Amendment is the Constitution. [View All]

It's true it will create a crisis, but not nearly as huge as letting the country fall into Depression. And actually, the Constitutional argument is strong.

The debt ceiling, I think, isn't even a law. It's a limit Congress made for itself, similar to limiting yourself to two drinks that night. The President, never signed it, never had the option to veto it. It's merely a rule of Congress, and there's no way that should be allowed to have broad, dire consequences for the entire world.

To be clear, here, President Obama probably should not even have been negotiating here. He is the leader of his party, but he should have had nothing directly to do with how Congress solves this. By coming into this and discovering he can't deal with these guys after all (how can that have been predicted?) he is assuring that he will go down with the Republicans.

Unless he's willing to try to rescue it now. However, a lot of damage has already been done. It will go to court if Obama does invoke the Amendment. I hope even Scalia will see the SCOTUS doesn't need to be soiled with this. He may not have much integrity, but he has a lot of Constitutional knowledge, and I think I'm right.

But it's not going to happen. My read on Obama is that there's no way he's going to invoke the 14th Amendment.