Cory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

Is it legal for Congress to #default on the US #NationalDebt? It depends on who you ask. There are a ton of good legal arguments for and against, so perhaps it comes down to what the (degraded, corrupt, illegitimate, partisan) #SupremeCourt says?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/opinion/biden-administration-debt-republican.html

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/26/mint-the-coin-etc-etc/#blitz-em

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Opinion | Doing Whatever It Takes on Debt

But don’t give in to Republican extortion.

The New York Times
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

Put in those terms, it seems like the game was over before it began. #Biden should just surrender, hand the most extreme wing of the (degraded, corrupt, illegitimate, authoritarian) #RepublicanParty whatever it wants, even if doing so will push Biden's approval rating even lower, dangerously close to the next federal election.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

In this telling, the Republicans have already won. The decision to let the #GOP steal three Supreme Court seats, combined with the decision not to end the #DebtCeiling charade when Dems had the majorities to do so, means that from now on, we live in the GOP's #ShitholeCountry.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

That's a country where the only "freedoms" that matter are the freedom to control others' bodily autonomy and gender expression; the freedom to exploit labor; the freedom to censor ideas that challenge #WhiteNationalist, imperialist messages; and the freedom to menace with open-carry assault weapons:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/opinion/republican-legislatures-abortion-trangender-education.html

In other words, we're screwed. Might as well dig a hole, climb inside, and pull the dirt in on top of us.

Fuck that.

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Opinion | The Four Freedoms, According to Republicans

This is not what Franklin Roosevelt had in mind.

The New York Times
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

There are clear majorities in support of the #BuildBackBetter agenda, and even for the watered down Machin Synematic Universe version we got through the #InfrastructureBill. If the Dems could mobilize voters - by convincing them that they were committed to *doing things* rather than capitulating - they could win strong majorities in 2024.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

Even in the gerrymandered, antimajoritarian America, electoral wins are possible - they just require overwhelming turnout, rather than the 50.00001% "victories" favored by "data-driven" Democratic consultants (victories that leave the party incapable of governing, and let monsters like #JoeManchin hold the entire nation hostage).

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe doing things won't mobilize voters.

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Show threadCory Doctorow

But if we're already going to stipulate that without significant majorities, the real President of the United States is the three-headed monster (#Gorsuch, #Thomas, and #Roberts), and the billionaires who yank their chains, then what do we have to lose?

There are a lot of things that Biden could try to get through the debt ceiling crisis without giving up on the promises he made to the American people and the programs the American Congress passed.

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May 26, 2023 at 10:58amWeb
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

Here's some from #BradDeLong:

* "The #FederalReserve might simply record a negative balance in the #Treasury account," then create an "overdraft" and pay the US's obligations out of it

* The Fed could tell retail banks trying to clear government checks that they didn't clear, and banks could tell their depositors, " your Treasury check bounced, but do not worry, we have credited your account, anyway, and will handle this, and please be grateful to us."

https://braddelong.substack.com/p/debt-ceiling-what-are-e-fallback

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CORRECTED & UPDATED: Thanks to Josh Barro: Debt Ceiling: What Are þe Fallback Threat Points in þe Case of "No Deal"?

Walking down the strategy & scenario tree...

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

Of course, there are lots of other possibilities: Biden could issue an #ExecutiveOrder to the effect that the Debt Ceiling violates the #14thAmendment. Or that it violates the #ContractsClause. Or he could order the Treasury to start issuing #CouponFreeBonds. Or he could just #MintTheCoin:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/23/23734654/government-debt-default-trillion-dollar-platinum-coin

Yes, each of these would end up in front of the (degraded, corrupt, illegitimate, partisan) Supreme Court, who would very likely strike them down.

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Shut up and mint the coin

Congress can’t even pretend to act like adults. Fortunately, the internet-poisoned have an idea for going around them: minting a $1 trillion coin to avoid default.

The Verge
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

But writing for #TheAmericanProspect, #RyanCooper argues that this could still be sound tactics:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-05-25-democrats-fear-supreme-court/

If Biden does something about the debt default, and the Supremes block it, then the default is *their* fault. What's more, it's a mess they absolutely do *not* want to get into, like deciding which of the US's creditors will and won't get paid when they sue over the default.

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Democrats Need to Get Over Their Pathetic Fear of the Supreme Court

On today’s X-Date, remembering what Franklin Roosevelt did when faced with a potential Court decision that would blow up the economy: prepare to ignore it.

The American Prospect
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

And if the court won't do it, will they give the president the power to "just pick and choose what gets paid? That would give him a de facto line-item veto over the entire budget, and the Court has already ruled that a law explicitly giving him that power is unconstitutional":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._City_of_New_York

Basically, if the Supreme Court kills Biden's attempt to resolve the budget crisis, then it becomes the Supreme Court's problem.

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Clinton v. City of New York - Wikipedia

Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

Everyone owed a federal payment "say, Social Security beneficiaries or military contractors," will bring a case - "There would be tens of millions of such potential litigants."

So what should Biden do?

Call their bluff.

First, mint the coin. If the court strikes that down, issue coupon-free bonds. If the court strikes *that* down, declare debt ceilings to violate the 14th Amendment. If the court strikes *that* down, declare it to violate the Contracts Clause.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

Keep doing it. Throw in every solution including the kitchen sink - but *never* give into the GOP's demand for Biden to violate his promise to the American people and unilaterally tear up laws establishing programs that make our lives better.

This is what Lincoln did when the Supreme Court blocked his attempts to end slavery. It's what #FDR did when they blocked the #NewDeal.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

The court doesn't have an army, it can't force its decisions on the American people. It doesn't have a bureaucratic workforce and it can't take over the administrative branch - hell, they don't even have the keys to the office buildings.

The Supreme Court's power comes from its legitimacy, not force of arms, and while they may not act like it, the Supremes know in their bones that without legitimacy, they are nothing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/25/consequentialism/#dotards-in-robes

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Pluralistic: The Golden Rule (them what has the gold makes the rules) (25 Mar 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

The justices in stolen seats have made it clear that they consider themselves to be "a de facto super-legislature that rules in favor of its own partisan policy objectives based on tendentious up-is-down reasoning or no reasoning at all." *This is an illegitimate proposition*.

The Supreme Court can't get any *less* legitimate. If Biden were to ignore the Supremes and make good law in the teeth of their pronouncements, it couldn't make the situation any worse than it is today.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

The Supremes have set themselves against labor law, against climate resiliency, against bodily autonomy, against political accountability, against the rule of law itself. We should not - we *must* not - cede the power to overrule democratically elected lawmakers and the will of the people.

As Cooper says, Biden should tell the Supremes to go pound sand and then "raise holy hell in speeches and the press to make clear the grotesque irresponsibility of what is happening":

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

> Here’s an institution trying to cause a completely pointless national default, destroying untold jobs, businesses, and the credit rating of the country, whose elite members are all unelected, where five members of the majority were appointed by a president who took office after losing the popular vote, and one of whom occupies a blatantly stolen seat.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

> Here’s an institution that has struck down anti-corruption laws by the bushel and is openly rolling in oligarch graft like Scrooge McDuck, while declaring itself to be immune from oversight. All that would add to the political pressure on the justices.

If Biden can't do well for the American people they they will not turn out in the massive majorities that Democrats need to get minimal majorities.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

If Biden can't do well for the American people, then Biden - who would lose an election to either Ron DeSantis *or* Donald Trump if it were called today - will turn America's predators loose on its people for at least four more years:

https://jacobin.com/2023/05/2024-presidential-election-2016-donald-trump-joe-biden/

And let's face it, it'll be Trump. DeSantis is dead in the water.

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2024 Is Beginning to Feel a Lot Like 2016

Joe Biden is so weak and unpopular that we have to take seriously the possibility that Donald Trump could defeat him in 2024.

Show threadCory DoctorowMay 26, 2023

The GOP is the party of out-of-control, swivel-eyed loons who've been whipped into a terrorized frenzy by an evil, crapulent senescent Australian billionaire and his freak henchmen, like the taint-tanning frozen food failson. They aren't going to elect "smart Trump." They like "stupid Trump" (AKA "Trump") too much.

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Joe Ravi (modified)
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CC BY-SA 3.0
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File:Panorama of United States Supreme Court Building at Dusk.jpg - Wikimedia Commons