T1B

Dinsdale wrote:Lot's of "lawyers" (mostly college profs, so take it for what it's worth) debating this, and they all seem to think (vast majority, anyway) that Scary Barry needs no such permission, on a few grounds, some of them interesting.

These lawyers are full of shit. There is reason that no president has used the 14th amendment to raise the debt ceiling on his own...he can't. There is always something, however painful, that can be cut before one gets down to the bare nubbin covered by the 14th amendment.

BillyJeff (not a lawyer anymore) said "if I were president, I'd raise the ceiling, and challenge them to stop me in court," which he implied no one could do.

Then why didn't he? He had his chance and didn't say shit about it.

Dinsdale wrote:Another point goes back to "debt shall not be questioned," which is wonderfully vague.

Actually the phrase is "public debt...shall not be questioned" and public debt does have a very specific meaning:

Debt Held by Public ie treasury securities held by individual and institutional inverstors outside gov't.

Intragovernmental Holdings ie treasury securities held in accounts managed by the government such as the Social Security "trust fund."

I hate to be overly simplistic, but wouldn't it be cool to have a complete list of all the recipients of U.S. kayshe that contitutes all this debt and then allow the citizens to vote on who gets what of their tax dollars?