Do forum libs support this?

Taking the power away from congress on debt limit to Treasury secretary?

And if so why?

This thread is not about debt limits but giving away congress power to bureaucrats.

  • Transfer the authority to raise the debt limit from Congress to the Treasury secretary
  • It’s congress responsibility

0 voters

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Great idea, give it to someone who doesn’t even get elected. :rofl:

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Not a lib but I do.

It would take away the partisan theater.

If that money is already spent, do we have much choice besides raising the ceiling ?

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Congress? Weren’t they replaced by a pen and a phone a few years back?

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  1. Congress shall have power to borrow money on the credit of the United States. ~ Art. I, sec. 8, cl. 2.

  2. Congress shall have power to coin money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures. ~ Art. I, sec. 8, cl. 5.

  3. Congress shall have power to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States. ~ Art. I, sec. 8, cl. 6.

  4. No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law. ~ Art. I, sec. 9, cl. 7.

  5. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. ~ Art. I, sec. 9, cl. 1.

  6. No state shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. ~ Art. I, sec. 10, cl. 1.

  7. In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. ~ Amdt. VII.

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Congress sets the spending, not the Executive.

Having the Executive come to Congress every once and a while to remind them that they have gone over their artificially imposed limit may have used to make sense… but in the past 20 years it has made less and less sense as it has become just another dumb political weapon that does nothing more than lower the Country’s credit rating.

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Now that’s what I call…passing the buck.

Depends, is it technically illegal or not.

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If I were King, this would be my approach:

Create a budget plan that leads toward a balanced budget by some horizon. (Five years. Ten years. Whatever gets negotiated.)

Calculate the additional debt the plan would generate over that time period.

Increase the debt ceiling by the amount necessary to accommodate that additional debt.

Make a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget from the drop-dead date forward.

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Sounds good to me

So lets give Treasury secretary and other bureaucrats responsibility to levy and raise taxes…or how about Defense secretary to wage/declare war.

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It seems the congress wants everything to be passed by executive order and they just get a salary for arguing with each other.

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The former I don’t think is analogous at all.

As far as the latter, doesn’t the executive branch already do that ?

Sure, why not? If we aren’t going to dump the whole load of nonsense, we should at least remove it as a yearly clown show.

So I’ll chuck up another one that wants to take it out of politicians hands and give to to unelected bureaucrats.

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I believe congress should do away with the debt ceiling limit altogether. Increasing it on a periodic basis is nothing but a rubber stamp exercise with lots of political posturing. Markets and debtor nations get nervous. No need for that kind of uncertainty whenever its time to increase it.

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Looks like everyone is at least somewhat aware if the coming crash this decade. A lot of you look like you’ve already accepted it too.

The debt ceiling should be removed entirely. It serves no purpose other than a tool to bludgeon the other side with, causing market uncertainty.

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I disagree. It’s public awareness of just how much/large/debt our goverment has accumulated. Bureaucrats would love nothing less to keep it from being publicized.

Thus precisely why it needs to be in congress hands and not bureaucrats.

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I don’t disagree, but it has turned into a pro forma game of political chicken, and one of these days they are going blow it.

In any event, we don’t need a debt ceiling in order to publicize the debt.