united-states constitutional-law us-constitution
What&#39;s the constitutionality of the debt ceiling?
<p>Section IV of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution says the validity of the debt "shall not be questioned."  Yet, Congress plays politics with the debt ceiling (as put in <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/our-national-debt-shall-not-be-questioned-the-constitution-says/238269/" rel="nofollow">this Atlantic article</a>, they "point a gun at the national credit rating and scream, 'One step and I'll shoot!'"), and default has been threatened over the course of these battles (thankfully, that's <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/11/02/obama-signs-2-year-budget-debt-deal-before-default-deadline" rel="nofollow">done for this administration</a>, just before another threatened default). The financial market <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-24/it-s-all-perverted-now-as-u-s-swap-spreads-tumble-below-zero" rel="nofollow">shows evidence that investors</a> "view the credit of banks as superior to that of the U.S. government."</p>

<p>What is the constitutionality of these limits and political games that do seem to cause people to question whether or not the debt will be paid?<br>
Wasn't the point of this amendment to prevent Congress from playing politics with the debt?</p>

<p>Congress is not questioning the validity of the debt.</p>

<p>Congress occasionally refuses to authorize borrowing more.  If the government cannot borrow more, it must run a balanced budget.  The U.S. government's budget is currently so unbalanced that large spending cuts are required to balance the budget.</p>

<p>In theory, Congress could raise taxes instead of implicitly preventing spending.  However, when Congress refuses to authorize borrowing more, it rarely is in a mood to raise taxes by enough to immediately balance the budget.</p>

<p>Congress is not questioning the validity of the debt when it refuses to allow more borrowing.</p>

<p>In fact, the only one questioning the validity of the debt is the President, who claims that he would default on our debts if we did not allow more borrowing to take place.  Currently, we take in enough money to pay off our debt obligations every month.  There's even enough left over to pay for other things, like military and medicare.  But there isn't enough to pay all of the bills.  The President, by threatening default if he does not get what he wants - unlimited borrowing power - is the only party here who is arguably questioning the validity of our debt.  I suspect he could be impeached for that if the Congress wanted to do so, but if they wanted to do that then they could have just avoided the whole question in the first place by voting for a balanced budget.</p>

<p>To illustrate, suppose government spending were composed of Military, Medicare, Social Security, Education, FBI, and Debt Service.  What the president says is that if he did not physically have enough money to pay for all of those things (due to his lack of borrowing power, not given by the Congress) he would not prioritize Debt Service first.  He would pay for Education, FBI, Social Security, Medicare, and Military and ignore the debt because he did not have enough money left over.  Therefor, if anyone has questioned the validity of the debt, it is the President.</p>
