More on the debt ceiling fiasco –

Bill Clinton has an easy answer for the current debt stalemate: If push comes to shove, President Obama should just raise the ceiling on his own and force Republicans to sue to stop him.

“I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether they pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy”

I’ve quoted Slate in the blockquote and the quote within the blockquote is President Clinton.

I agree it does seem crazy for Congress to appropriate money we don’t have and then have to vote again to approve the borrowing. If they didn’t want to spend it, why approve the budget in the first vote?

A compromise is probably the best and most certain solution. But will compromise come in time?

The President also has Article 2, Section 3 of the constitution on his side. Of course, the abilty of the President to ignore the debt ceiling law could be challenged and we can never be sure how the courts will decide but the suggestion that this is a likely outcome could increase the seriousness of Republican negotiating. (see Can the President ignore the debt ceiling?).

The Republican position now seems to be that your side is not giving enough and our side doesn’t have to give anything. But it would be good to remind Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor that they do not hold all the cards. If we are going to negotiate this, let both sides give a little.