“I’m looking at the 14th Amendment as to whether or not we have the authority,” US president Joe Biden told reporters on May 21. “I think we have the authority.”

The “authority” he speaks of is the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, which the US Constitution reserves exclusively to Congress.  “Invoking” the 14th Amendment wouldn’t change that. There are precisely two ways in which he could exercise such power.

The first would be a constitutional amendment creating such a power for him. That would require approval of 2/3 of both houses of Congress and ratification by 3/4 of the states. Unlikely, especially on a short timeline.

The second would be ignoring the Constitution, doing whatever he feels like doing, and daring Congress to challenge him on the matter.

Which, especially since World War 2, is pretty much business as usual.

Truman went to war with North Korea. Johnson went to war with North Vietnam. Bush went to war with Iraq and Afghanistan. Not to mention a great many smaller conflicts, without a single congressional declaration of war, and without a single impeachment proceeding for going to war without that required congressional declaration.

A number of presidents have negotiated and implemented international agreements without the required Senate ratification, via the simple subterfuge of not calling them what they were: Treaties. Recent examples include Barack Obama’s “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (aka the “Iran nuclear deal”) and Donald Trump’s “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan.”

The prerogatives of the imperial presidency go beyond foreign policy, of course.  Take, for example, Trump’s 2019 theft of funds appropriated for “defense” by Congress to build his “border wall” (after Congress had expressly denied him funding for that project multiple times). Congress’s response? A resolution “rebuking” him.

The Constitution is meaningless if it’s toothless — if there’s neither any reversal of, nor any penalty for,  actions which violate it. That’s as true at the level of the presidency as at the level of a local beat cop conducting a search without the constitutionally required warrant.

As 19th-century anarchist Lysander Spooner wrote, “whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”

Perhaps we should  stop pretending, against all available evidence, that it DOES exist.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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I used to live “in the country.” Now I arguably live “in the suburbs.”

No, I haven’t moved closer to the city (Gainesville, Florida). The city’s moved closer to me.

When I moved into my current residence ten years ago, the area around me was largely farmland,  and most residences were either older farmhouses or mobile homes sitting on lots of an acre or more.

Now, only a decade later, I’m nearly surrounded by “suburban housing developments” — expensive homes on small lots, marketed to professionals who work in the city but don’t want to live there.

And hey, that’s how it should be, right? Live where you want to live. Work where you want to work.

But don’t expect everyone else to subsidize your choices.

As the burbs have expanded outward and past my own digs, the main artery connecting them to city workplaces and markets has become more and more congested — “rush hour” traffic jams mean the speed limit may be 60 miles per hour but the average speed is much lower (during “rush hour,” I can ride my bicycle into town on the road-adjacent trail faster than people can travel on the road itself).

When a developer decides to turn a large plot of land into a piece of “suburbia,” one of the main considerations is ease of commute … and neither developers nor prospective residents want to shoulder the costs of road expansion to keep traffic moving.

Try proposing a toll road in any area and see who squawks loudest. It will be the people who use the road and would have to pay the tolls (and the developers trying to sell houses to them).

Instead of “paying their fair share,” they want to shift much of the cost to urban residents who get lower gas mileage (and thus pay more pro rata in gas taxes) and who aren’t even using those suburban roads; to rural residents who aren’t rushing into town and would likely be perfectly happy with two lanes of blacktop; and to pedestrians and cyclists who pay sales taxes that make up the deficit when gas taxes aren’t enough, all while taking their lives in their own hands interacting with entitled, lead-footed suburban motorists.

I have no problem with people moving to the suburbs and commuting to work. But they should shoulder the costs of their preferred lifestyles instead of sticking everyone else with the check.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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As I write this, the latest episode of US Government Debt Ceiling Theater seem to be approaching its denouement: Congressional and White House negotiators report “progress” in talks to raise the government’s debt ceiling before (not especially fat) lady, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, sings “default.”

I say “episode,” but perhaps the proper term is “reboot.” The story never really changes. In each iteration, both sides dance on the brink of default until nearly the last minute, then agree to minor spending cuts now and big ones later in return for raising the “debt ceiling,” then cruise toward the next episode when those big spending cuts never arrive and Congress gets up against its credit card limit yet again. Rinse, repeat.

The big question, which never seems to get asked very loudly, is “why do we go through this over and over, with big blow-ups every few years, and nothing ever getting really settled?”

The answer, as popularized in several mid-20th-century songs:

“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”

Americans want all kinds of goodies, and American politicians want to hand out those goodies.

Americans don’t want to pay for those goodies, and American politicians don’t want to demand payment for those goodies.

For example, Americans want lower retirement ages, bigger retirement benefits, and better Medicare services, without paying higher FICA taxes.

If you suggest that they pay more in advance, wait longer to collect, make do with a smaller check, or pay a higher Medicare premium, don’t bother running for office (or, if in office, for re-election).

Ditto good highways but no tolls, mass transit with fares that don’t cover the cost of providing it,  “free” college, etc.

Politicians’ solution: No biggie! We’ll just BORROW the money, and let someone ELSE worry about it later!

It should be obvious that this can’t go on forever.

And, in fairness, other countries have all those things.

How do those other governments provide all those goodies? By taxing the bejeezus out of their “middle class” citizens.

France’s government takes 46.2% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product in taxes. Denmark takes 46%.  Sweden, 44%. Germany, 37.5%.

Apparently THEIR citizens are willing to die to go to heaven, and a  social-democratic welfare state strikes them as heaven.

The US government takes 27.1% of GDP in taxes, and does a pretty lousy job of replicating those welfare states. The people who want that kind of thing don’t want to pay nearly twice as much in taxes for the real deal, and even the insane level of borrowing we’ve seen since World War Two won’t cover the tab.

Neither will “taxing the rich.” There are only so many of them, they already pay most of the income taxes in the US, and confiscating every dime they have or earn wouldn’t come close to making up the difference between revenues and spending.

Personally, I’m not big on the social-democratic welfare state concept. But those “middle class” Americans who want it need to either cough up or shut up.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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