Give ‘em a chance – they might just surprise you!

But, no you’re right. They are all about the dollars. Law is just spaghetti they weave whichever way they must to keep their golfing buddies on the green. Witness the backflips John Roberts went through to greenlight RobamneyCare. First in preliminary hearings of motions, the mandate is not considered a tax because we need to call it a penalty so we can hear the case before law goes into effect. Then later, during the case proper and in the majority opinion, it IS a tax because we need to have a justification for why the government can force people to buy this crap. He made up and approved arguments that the Obama Administration’s lawyers didn’t even advance. No doubt: when faced with the decision to let life go on as before, or monkeywrench the works, and so cost the rich 1% a shitload of money in tanked investments, the SCOTUS will do whatever they have to to protect the rich. To shield the rich, they’d even uphold the Constitution, in spirit and letter, if there was really no other way.

The first person who doesn’t get paid after the debt limit is reached and all of the Treasury Department’s “extraordinary measures” are exhausted will have standing, and so will everyone else in the same boat that follows. “I’ve got a bond that says the USG owe me X” or “I’ve got a contract that says the USG will pay me Y for this job, and now it’s done and I demand payment” or “I provided the USG with this commodity, and I was refused payment.”

Plenty of people will have standing, if the debt ceiling doesn’t get raised, and there’s no way the courts could say otherwise. The Bipartisan Policy Center staff estimate the date on which this will take place if nothing is done to be somewhere between Feb 15 and March 1. (Full discussion here.)

The courts may not want to take these cases, but they’ll have to. They didn’t want to take Bush v Gore, either, but ended up taking it because they had no other choice.

We need our branches of government (well, two of them) to engage publicly on this issue, to educate American citizens (and clueless media personages). People need to be helped to understand that none of the executive responses being considered are extra-constitutional; they are legitimate responses to an anti-constitutional law.

The debt ceiling does not actually exist. Invoking it into law doesn’t make it real. Using such a ludicrous device as a $1T platinum coin is an appropriate response.

But the education needs to start, and it mustn’t be limited to Brian Williams and Ezra Klein and a certain Shrill Nobel Laureate. Very Serious People, in The Village, need to explain this over and over and over.

Our media are idiots. They need repetition.

Scalia, Thomas, Alioto since they, apparently, view the next world as more important than this one, I suggest, would vote to destroy the economy as you cannot compromise with “God” or “Original Intent”.

I would do it for more than a mere trillion. Make if large enough so the asswipes in the supreme asswipe society have to weigh in, like $100 T. If they don’t declare that unconstitutional,then there is no more debt problem for the next century or so. If they do say it is uncon, then they have to live with the consequences. These people have to learn to live with their fucking choices.

Those three, that’s for sure. But will Roberts and Kennedy join those crazy asses?

This Supreme Court is the Tim Donaghy of referees with it comes to the law. These narcissists will not rule in favor of taking money out of their investment portfolios, nor will any sitting politician in this day and age will make legislation to that effect. Furthermore, the executive branch has proven to be impotent in enforcing any law that may damage corporate executive investment portfolios.

“The courts may not want to take these cases, but they’ll have to. They didn’t want to take Bush v Gore, either, but ended up taking it because they had no other choice.”

They did too have a choice. They could have let the Florida Supreme Court decide, as vote counting is a State Right.

I would like to humbly submit that standing in this case may actually be a little tricky. Presumably, the entities that are awaiting payment would argue…. what? That the platinum coin should be minted, or that Congress should increase the debt ceiling? Both situations would result in them getting paid, so whose side would they argue?

“Our media are idiots. They need repetition.”

It seems so, but I think, with the possible exception of the talking heads at FOX, it’s not that they’re idiots, they just refuse to offer an opinion that is not the concensus of all the others. Don’t ask me how they do that, it takes some really fancy footwork, but the alternative is getting tagged for displeasing the corporate media masters, and the “media” have no way of finding out in advance what will or will not please their masters. The masters sure as hell aren’t going to give clear (repeatable) instructions.

Oooh, oooh! I’ve got it! Classify all government financial transations. Then nobody could reveal how he was screwed, or the court couldn’t consider it, and thus nobody can establish “standing.”

The United States Supreme Court won’t be responsible for destroying the world economy

Pinky swear?????

Lemme see if I understand you. By classifyibng all transactions we would not know hoe muh money we have, nor how muh we spent, nor how much money we owed anybody???????????

Why has nobody though of this before. THAT’S FRIGGIN’ BRILLIANT. You are a genius.

Where were you last time this came up?????
:-)

Not hard to make a National Security argument about info relating to our credit limit. We will only be able to discuss the Khardashians pretty soon if we do what you say; so really no difference.

While many may not feel comfortable playing Calvinball with the constitution, it is the level to which our government has already devolved to in recent years.

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that ALEC has plans to change the Constitution this Summer, through Article V and impose the Balanced Budget Amendment…! 8-(

This probably doesn’t mean much since we haven’t had a Federal Budget since ’09. Continuning resolutions Ad Infinitum.

We’re ALL going to be “living with their choices”.

Would not all the Supremes themselves have standing since they are Fed employees and are paid by govt.

Thus wouldn’t they all have to recuse themselves?

I do wish the Khardashians would become classified. And Lindsey Lohan.

Actually:

I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!

“the popular, moral and legal credibility of the institution.” Bwahahahahahaha

Congress through its appropriations bills authorized various payments to be made, contracts to be let out, and federal jobs to be filled.

Congress also through the debt ceiling act is limiting the amount of money the Executive branch can borrow to meet those obligations.

My guess is that the people demanding payment would likely argue that the debt ceiling is an unconstitutional limit on the Executive branch’s power to execute the laws under Article II, section 3. “Congress, by passing the debt ceiling, is improperly preventing the executive branch from paying the bills that the US government has incurred under the appropriations they have passed.”

(See Jon’s earlier post for more on the conflict between these two laws.)

I must be missing something here .The 14th requires the bills be paid ,Obama has said he won’t be hamstrung by some junk-law artifice that would thwart his constitutional duty ,and hence the bills are paid .He doesn’t need to further telegraph intentionality or run it by SCOTUS to get some green-light finding , just be a leader .If he doesn’t I would suspect Bruce Fein or likeminded person would seek impeachment for abrogating his duty and creating a threefold crisis ,political ,economic ,and constitutional .

Once again ,I might be missing something ,but this blog seems to presuppose a reactionary posture for which a pre-emptive tussle is a historical given in such matters of jurisprudence .

I must be missing something here .The 14th requires the bills be paid ,Obama has said he won’t be hamstrung by some junk-law artifice that would thwart his constitutional duty ,and hence the bills are paid .He doesn’t need to further telegraph intentionality or run it by SCOTUS to get some green-light finding , just be a leader

And therein lies the flaw in your reasoning.

Leadership is, to say the absolute least, not Obama’s forte.

Obama is not going to use any unilateral way to avoid the debt ceiling.

And, if he did, the SCOTUS would slap him down faster than you can say Bush v. Gore–and that’s only three syllables.

Never underestimate the damage the Supreme Court can do. (See Dred Scott, Bush v. Gore, Citizens United)

Whoa, I hate to have to go all instructional on y’all, but here’s how this stuff works:

SCOTUS simply says this is a political matter, not a legal one. They’ve done it enough times before that it pretty much never gets to them anymore. Bush v. Gore was the outrageous exception, wherein they grabbed the case by their own motion(s), bypassing normal procedure, in material disregard of the Court’s previous postures.

I can’t quote you case law just now, but, rest assured, I’m right. Cuz freedom.

Current SCOTUS might back the Pres as executor of textual law, but more likely they’d just phrase something about a political contest being outside their purview, as the question’s resolution can only be rendered in the political arena.

One point I left out:

SCOTUS justices do this because they want to protect themselves, and the institution’s powers. They’d much rather not get in the middle of messes twixt the parties that could go so far as somebody’s impeachment, or the institution’s decline.

They took the rap for Bush v Gore. What’s the big deal about the world economy?

I’m with gannonguckert. They punt on the political question doctrine.

Bush v. Gore was the outrageous exception,

No need to cite case law. We believe that precedent says that the SCOTUS does not decide political questions.

Bush v. Gore was an outrageous exception, but they never said that case would be the only outrageous exception, did they?

Despite his blabber about originalism, Scalia is result-oriented, that result being Republican political views win. To that end, Scalia finds the most amazing things to be within the original intent of the framers, like they wanted corporations to be people. So, I don’t put anything past him, precedent or not; and that’s two votes right there (Scalia’s and Thomas’s).

But separation of power is a constitutional question, not a political question. And this certainly can be framed as a separation of powers case.

For Scalia, I would frame it as, “Does the Constitution give the now Democratic Executive Branch the power to usurp the financial powers that the Constitution entrusts only to the Congress, the now Republican Congress, to be specific?

And I am fairly confident that would ultimate get us to the merits of the case, even consistent with the political question doctrine.

I have not explored the merits of trillion dollar coin issue, but I have read the 14th amendment and I have watched Obama fairly closely.

As to the 14th amendment, Congress has not questioned the validity of any debt of the U.S. and that is all the 14th amendment says may not happen. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling is not the equivalent of saying, “hey, is that debt really legally owed?” I can freely admit that I owe you money and not produce the money to pay you. You might sue me to collect your money, but that is all.

Even if Congress had questioned the validity of a debt of the U.S. the Constitution is totally silent as to what happens after Congress violates that admonition. It never goes on to say, “And that is when Congress’s powers over money automatically shift to the Executive Branch.” Never says that or anything else.

It is like “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” What happens after you say to yourself “Boy, I sure do wish she were my wife instead of his?”

Moreover, Carney has said that the President does not believe that the 14th amendment empowers him to, in effect, unilaterally raise the debt ceiling. Obviously, on this, I agree with Obama.

Did Obama let Carney say that because Obama planned a surprise attack on Congress? Doubtful. More leverage if Carney had at least said, “We are looking at that carefully.”

Finally, based on everything that we know about Obama since he applied to Harvard Law School, would risking a constitutional crisis be remotely Obama’s style? And what the heck would that do to the economy?

If saying “Get over it” is taking the rap, they sure did take the rap.