Thomas Sowell (libertarian economist) advocates repealing debt ceiling law

I found Sowell's column from today at Drudge Retort, the left-wing alternative to Matt Drudge's tabloid smear site. "Rcade", who self-identifies as liberal, posted the column "Debt-Ceiling Chicken." BUT...he's speaking from the angle of wanting limited government in his claim that the ceiling is counter-productive.





So putting Sowell's POV aside, should the government have a debt ceiling? The 14th amendment states: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law...shall not be questioned." And the debt ceiling acts as the legal authorization of the national debt.

I think the debt ceiling might be unconstitutional unless a signed budget automatically raises the ceiling. Think of the current situation. Congress has already authorized this fiscal year's spending. What they are doing is preventing the Whitehouse from spending the authorizations. In other words, approving the budget should authorize the level of debt necessary for the executive to execute the spending in the authorization. A reasonable court would see that separating the two processes is just politics and not policy. Right now Congress has told Obama to spend the money but is preventing him from spending it. The Republicans don't want to admit that they sent that budget to Obama. The deficit within it is all their doing. The 14th would come in if the revenue coming in was insufficient to pay the current debt obligations.