In my past few posts I’ve said that I believe the President has authority to exceed the Congressionally authorized debt ceiling by virute of his (or her) duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” (Article 2, Section 3). (See http://www.jackreidy.com/blog/2011/07/15/government-by-separation-of-powers-and-ambiguity/ and http://www.jackreidy.com/blog/2011/07/14/debt-ceiling-choices/ )

This is what I would do if I were in the President’s position. I would remind everyone the President has an obligation to execute the laws. It is impossible to execute all laws since the debt ceiling law denies him the money to execute many laws, and so he has no choice but to ignore the debt ceiling law unless Congress increases the debt ceiling. By failing to increase the debt ceiling in a timely manner, Congress is blocking his constitutional obligation.

So it seems to me there are 2 good arguments in favor of this. First, the President is in a situation were he cannot execute all the laws so he must pick. The second is that the debt limit law is unconstitional since it prevents the President from carrying out duties specified in the Constitution.

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.

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