14th Amendment is no debt solution, writes Laurence Tribe

Don't fall for the misrepresentation from FDL. This is what Tribe actually said.
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One of President Barack Obama’s most enthusiastic supporters, Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, said on Friday the White House and Congress can’t fall back on the 14th Amendment to make an end run around the current debt crisis.

Writing on the New York Times op-ed page, Tribe, who once called Obama the “best student I ever had,” said the idea that a president can use the 14th Amendment to borrow money without regard to Congress provides “the false hope of a legal answer that obviates the need for a real solution.”

“Several law professors and senators, and even Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, have suggested that section 4 of the 14th Amendment, known as the public debt clause, might provide a silver bullet,” Tribe said. “This provision states that ‘the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.’ They argue that the public debt clause is sufficient to nullify the ceiling — or can be used to permit the president to borrow money without regard to the ceiling.”
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“The Constitution grants only Congress — not the president — the power ‘to borrow money on the credit of the United States,’” Tribe wrote. “Nothing in the 14th Amendment or in any other constitutional provision suggests that the president may usurp legislative power to prevent a violation of the Constitution. Moreover, it is well established that the president’s power drops to what Justice Robert H. Jackson called its “lowest ebb” when exercised against the express will of Congress.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58557.html

Link?

Use the 14th amendment to raise the debt limit to avoid default.

The 14th Amendment is what prohibits default; however, in no way does it allow for the raising the debt limit.

To avoid defaulting we simply must pay our bills. And our bills are represented by the interest on the bonds and the bonds that have reached maturity.

Incredible...!