It is Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to our Constitution of our great nation. (I choose still to use the word \u201cgreat\u201d because I don\u2019t identify this nation with its government.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law \u2026 shall not be questioned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Compare and contrast with the President\u2019s comment of a week ago: \u201cAs reckless as a government shutdown is \u2026 an economic shutdown that results from default would be dramatically worse\u201d or the opening of his address to the nation a couple of days later, in which he talks of meeting \u201cRepublicans and Democrats from both Houses of Congress in an effort to \u2026 remove the dangers of default from our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be clear.<\/p>\n
If anyone who has sworn an oath of office to uphold the Constitution would threaten any default by the USA when the USA has a) the revenue to meet the interest obligations on its debt and b) (for shame) the ability of a sovereign issuer of its own currency to pay all its debts at any time c) seen this coming for ages, and therefore had plenty of time to prepare for it, then he is doing little other than threatening willfully to violate his oath.<\/p>\n
The credit of the USA should never have been in question and never had to be. As all of this nonsense of the last couple of weeks has been going on, everyone involved should have been repeating that part of the 14th amendment out loud, reiterating that all debts would be paid first out of government revenue simply because that is the supreme Law of the land – and because, therefore, their integrity as takers of the oath to uphold the Constitution would not allow them to threaten impeachable behavior for political ends – or, for that matter, for any ends whatsoever. Their priority would then have been to put in place the practical mechanisms for ensuring that would be done.<\/p>\n