So our Treasury Secretary took to the T.V. shows yesterday to chime in on his view of the crushing debt his team has run up during his tenure as our nation’s top financial executive. Yes, this is the same man that despite the fact that even by our President’s own admission during his transition into being President, was a know tax cheat, and in fact guilty of a crime which would have sent either you or me to prison, he was the only person in America smart enough to be our Treasury Secretary. (This completely discounts by the way the almost useless fact that indeed there has been a bevy of Treasury Secretaries for 235 years, most of whom held the post before the only man in America up to the task was even born.) On T.V., he read a part of Section IV of the Fourteenth Amendment. He changed the context of his reading for us, and did nothing to hide the fact that he was changing that context, and used it as an argument that our President was entitled to completely trash any semblance of the checks and balances system which have served us so well for 235 years. The Fourteenth Amendment and Geitner’s interpretation follow.
AmendmentXIV.
Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.
(Note: Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution was modified by
Section 2 of the 14th Amendment.)
SECTION 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall
any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
SECTION 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several
States according to their respective numbers, counting the
whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians
not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for
the choice of electors for President and Vice President of
the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive
and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants
of such State, [being twenty-one years of age,]* and
citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except
for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of
representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion
which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the
whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in
such State.
SECTION 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress,
or elector of President and Vice President, or hold
any office, civil or military, under the United States, or
under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a
member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States,
or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive
or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution
of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds
of each House, remove such disability.
SECTION 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized
by law, including debts incurred for payment of
pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection
or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the
United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt
or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion
against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation
of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and
claims shall be held illegal and void.
SECTION 5.
The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.
*Changed by Section 1 of the 26th Amendment.
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A couple of points, first, I am no fan of the Fourteenth Amendment. While it had its uses in the 40 years post civil war, ie. granting citizenship to former slaves, allowing us to stiff the nations who sided against the Union and provided support to the Confederacy, insured that Union soldiers would not be voted out of their pension rights by Democrat majorities in Southern States, it has also landed us with the concept of anchor babies, and now according to Timmy Geitner the ability of our President to declare financial martial law. Bear in mind though, Tim needed to have you ignore part of his reading of the Amendment, and place extra emphasis on another in order to grant these extraordinary power to his boss.
SECTION 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized
by law, including debts incurred for payment of
pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection
or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the
United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt
or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion
against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation
of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and
claims shall be held illegal and void.
Two things about his argument, one, public debt as authorized by law. This does not include authority to incur new debt, which is what raising the debt limit would do. We can still pay off our old debt without incurring new debt. This is the concept which befuddles our Executive Branch, since it involves a cessation of their power. This remedy includes them to stop spending money that they don’t have on things which we do not need nor can we afford. The solution necessitates the change of our current statutory spending, meaning entitlements. The phrase given extra importance, why of course it was the one that said, shall not be questioned. Mr. Geitner, the smartest guy in the room has just ended a pesky little piece of our Constitutional form of governance referred to as the checks and balances system. Good thing too, I was getting tired of not having a king. Who did Timmy establish as our king? Why it’s Barack Obama, the least qualified person in any room he enters, that’s who.
More over, the fourteenth Amendment does not alter or remove Article I, Section 7. It does not alter or remove Article I, Section 8. Section 7 states that any matter of spending must originate in the House of Representatives. Section 8 confirms the House’s control of the purse strings and indeed the House’s duty to determine how debts will be repaid. Further, I love how the leftists will argue that our Constitution is no longer relevant, and that our founding fathers actually never really wanted to build a framework which would serve to limit the power and scope of authority of a ruling elite. Then when the mood strikes them, they will attempt to use the Constitution as a means to show us how it actually serves as a map to inflict growing amounts of dictatorial powers which had somehow escaped the notice of previous elected leaders. There is a reason why the Tea Parties have been springing up across this great nation. Americans, especially those of us who can remember a free society, and how well we did prior to an infliction of totalitarian authority do not wish to travel down this path.
