Law Commons^™

How To Choose The Least Unconstitutional Option: Lessons For The President (And Others) From The Debt Ceiling Standoff, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

Michael C. Dorf

The federal statute known as the “debt ceiling” limits total borrowing by the United States. Congress has repeatedly raised the ceiling to authorize necessary borrowing, but a political standoff in 2011 nearly made it impossible to borrow funds to meet obligations that Congress had affirmed earlier that very year. Some commentators urged President Obama to ignore the debt ceiling, while others responded that such borrowing would violate the separation of powers and therefore that the president should refuse to spend appropriated funds. This Article analyzes the choice the president nearly faced in summer 2011, and which he or a successor …

Nullifying The Debt Ceiling Threat Once And For All: Why The President Should Embrace The Least Unconstitutional Option, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

Michael C. Dorf

In August 2011, Congress and the President narrowly averted economic and political catastrophe, agreeing at the last possible moment to authorize a series of increases in the national debt ceiling. This respite, unfortunately, was merely temporary. The amounts of the increases in the debt ceiling that Congress authorized in 2011 were only sufficient to accommodate the additional borrowing that would be necessary through the end of 2012. In an economy that continued to show chronic weakness -- weakness that continues to this day -- the federal government would predictably continue to collect lower-than-normal tax revenues and to make higher-than-normal expenditures, …

Confronting Chaos: The Fiscal Constitution Faces Federal Shutdowns And (Almost) Debt Defaults, Charles Tiefer

All Faculty Scholarship

Recent events raise the question of whether two near-failures in what scholars call the "Fiscal Constitution" may plunge the government into paralysis or chaos. In October 2013, a lapse in congressional appropriations shut the government down for two weeks. The shutdown furloughed hundreds of thousands of federal employees. It caused some agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS"), virtually to close their doors and to curtail their services.

Simultaneously, and potentially even more devastating, the House of Representatives (alternatively "House") firmly refused during an extremely tense countdown to raise the statutory debt ceiling of the government. When the government …

Nullifying The Debt Ceiling Threat Once And For All: Why The President Should Embrace The Least Unconstitutional Option, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In August 2011, Congress and the President narrowly averted economic and political catastrophe, agreeing at the last possible moment to authorize a series of increases in the national debt ceiling. This respite, unfortunately, was merely temporary. The amounts of the increases in the debt ceiling that Congress authorized in 2011 were only sufficient to accommodate the additional borrowing that would be necessary through the end of 2012. In an economy that continued to show chronic weakness -- weakness that continues to this day -- the federal government would predictably continue to collect lower-than-normal tax revenues and to make higher-than-normal expenditures, …

How To Choose The Least Unconstitutional Option: Lessons For The President (And Others) From The Debt Ceiling Standoff, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The federal statute known as the “debt ceiling” limits total borrowing by the United States. Congress has repeatedly raised the ceiling to authorize necessary borrowing, but a political standoff in 2011 nearly made it impossible to borrow funds to meet obligations that Congress had affirmed earlier that very year. Some commentators urged President Obama to ignore the debt ceiling, while others responded that such borrowing would violate the separation of powers and therefore that the president should refuse to spend appropriated funds.

This Article analyzes the choice the president nearly faced in summer 2011, and which he or a successor …