Titanic, meet iceberg

[james_davis_nicoll]

White House budget office directs federal agencies to shut down

"Planet of the Apes (1968 Movie End Edit)" (Watch on YouTube)

Comments

[jack-ryder.livejournal.com]

Dammit, that's exactly what I was thinking!

[wakboth.livejournal.com]

I'm more interested in what's going to happen with the debt ceiling thing. Will the Republicans find some measure of sanity and courage and step back from the abyss, or will Obama have to deal with the fact that the House majority party is not only unwilling to govern, but also incapable to do so?

[jayblanc.livejournal.com]

Also of note, in 18 days the Federal Debt Ceiling needs to be raised, or either of one or two things happen. Option one is that once the US passes it's Federal Debt Ceiling, is the US Treasury has to stop issuing bonds and security, and immediately after that it will default on any bonds and securities that mature that day because they don't have the funds to pay them. That would be a bad thing for everyone.

And by everyone I mean *practically everyone on earth*, US Treasury Securities are a market implement used as 'common currency' in trading globally. The US defaulting on even a fraction of them would have severe consequences, it'd be like having a random number of $20 Dollar Bills turn to dust when someone next tries to use them.

Option Two is for the President to declare that with conflicting legislative instruction that he is to continue honouring the US's debts, and continue to spend as the budget direct him, he must choose to disregard the legislative instruction regarding a limit on borrowing.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

Nor is it clear some subset of the Republicans won't then try to impeach for flagrant disregard of the law, since as far as an external observer can determine, a lot of them think the default is the moral choice of those two things.

[jayblanc.livejournal.com]

Practically certain they would.

[seawasp]

They would certainly call for impeachment at that point. They've been salivating at the thought of doing that since he was elected, and their frustration at their various scandals (Benghazi, IRS, etc.) not panning out in that direction has driven them nuts.

[jayblanc.livejournal.com]

And of course, calling for impeachment when the Senate is sure to clear Obama is an entirely meaningless gesture.

[seawasp]

But a very important gesture that makes their leaders happy, and default would probably get the US credit rating devalued instantly, which they could blame on Obama in the next election, so at the moment, everything looks rosy to them. Chances to charge impeachment, ruin of the economy, and everything directed at Obama.

[jayblanc.livejournal.com]

Alas, if only they knew which end of the gun to point at the hostage.

[seawasp]

The problem is it's not a gun, it's a large grenade that they've just pulled the pin on. Yes, they'll be at the epicenter of the blast, but all of us in the same room -- and, unfortunately, we are ALL in the same room -- are going to get hurt if they let it drop.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

They won't even be at the center of the blast. I think that if it happens, and if the US somehow survives as a political entity, they'll become more powerful than ever.

The unfortunate fact is that there's essentially nothing Republican legislators can do that will reflect badly on themselves. Their stated platform is that they're anti-government, that they're the people to vote for if you think Washington is broken. So if they break Washington, that makes their thesis more appealing. It's a positive feedback loop.

I have already seen this crisis used as an anti-Obamacare argument: we clearly can't trust health care to the government, because its political opponents will just do extreme things to kill it. It's a pure heckler's veto.

Part of the problem is that many Americans have only a vague idea that politicians other than the President ever do anything. If the system is screwed up, it's not always obvious that the people complaining about how screwed up it is were also the ones responsible. A Republican President has a hard time avoiding identification with "Washington" forever, so the actions of such a President can eventually reflect badly on them (2006, 2008). But with legislators there's essentially no disincentive to screw up.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

They would certainly be frothing at the mouth and screaming for impeachment - as they've been doing off and on since he got into office. It's not at all clear that anyone outside the circle jerk would buy that "The President...shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors" includes giving a technically dubious but practically necessary temporary order that keeps the national economy from falling apart, by continuing to uphold the promises that it already made.

Within the echo chamber, yes, they'd be utterly rabid that he didn't let the entire country fall apart to give them their moment of spite.

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

House members can be impeached, can't they?

--Dave, by petition perhaps?

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Article II Section 4 says, "The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment..." so it would seem so.

Indeed, I find a list of impeached elected officials; the very first one was Senator William Blount, dismissed from office on 14 January 1799. No member of the House of Representatives has been impeached yet, but the legal groundwork is present.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

There's a third option that doesn't require violating any law. The rules allowing the Mint to make commemorative coins say they can create platinum coins of any value they want. And since commemorative coins are legal currency, if the Mint makes a trillion dollar coin and sends it to Treasury, the Treasury will technically be solvent.

The Administration declared this a non-starter during the last debt ceiling crisis, but if push comes to shove they'd be crazy not to use the loophole.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

During the last debt ceiling crisis, Obama was seen as willing to negotiate with terrorists (ie, capitulate), and the Democrats were soft of backbone. This time he isn't and they appear to be standing firm.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

We aren't in a debt crisis yet -- that won't start for a few more days, and I doubt Obama's evolved a backbone in the last eight months.

[cdodgson.livejournal.com]

There are several possible legal outs. Another would be to cite the 14th amendment clause that states that "The validity of the public debt of the United States ... shall not be questioned" to argue that any law preventing payment of debt (or necessary measures to allow that), including the debt ceiling, is and has always been unconstitutional.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

It should be noted that the US is pretty much the only country that has such a ridiculous system.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Mind, every government has some ridiculousness built into its system. I understand the start of every Canadian and British parliament is the debating of a bill that does nothing and that's never meant to be passed, and that British MPs can't resign from office, the prime minister included. Those are both matters of symbolism (the first, that whatever the Queen's Speech may say is urgent, the parliament can and shall discuss what it wants instead; the second, that MPs can't abdicate their responsibility to the public) and would require severe convolutions to actually become issues, but then, matters like the debt ceiling were too (it was mostly a chance for the opposition to complain about government spending) until the Republicans began weaponizing parliamentary procedure.

(British MPs ``resign'' by applying to the Crown for one of a couple of sinecures, which no longer have any actual duties and are granted as a matter of course; symbolically, this means taking up a responsibility to the Crown which supersedes that to the public.)

[(Anonymous)]

Last time this happened an article in the Globe and Mail business section said that there are a few acceptable financial tricks the government can pull to avoid an immediate default. I believe the total delay possible is some months.

William Hyde