I don't have strong feelings about the 14th amendment solution, but aren't all debts of the US "authorized by law"? Doesn't the federal government, at least in theory, need legal authority to incur any debts?
So there is no Chesterton's Fence-type argument whatsoever for the debt ceiling to exist? Has it ever led to any reflection about government size/spending, or is it merely an occasion for the exercise of cleverness such as minting a big coin* or further mining the word salad of the 14th amendment? If the latter, conservatives should indeed be quite prepared to give up on it. There is no sense in which fakery serves the nation's interests; better to forget whatever the principle was, than to preserve it only to mock it, if it had any validity.
*Rather poignant that Google chooses to illustrate the dimensions of this shiny totem by invoking seven Saturn V rockets.
I don't have strong feelings about the 14th amendment solution, but aren't all debts of the US "authorized by law"? Doesn't the federal government, at least in theory, need legal authority to incur any debts?
So there is no Chesterton's Fence-type argument whatsoever for the debt ceiling to exist? Has it ever led to any reflection about government size/spending, or is it merely an occasion for the exercise of cleverness such as minting a big coin* or further mining the word salad of the 14th amendment? If the latter, conservatives should indeed be quite prepared to give up on it. There is no sense in which fakery serves the nation's interests; better to forget whatever the principle was, than to preserve it only to mock it, if it had any validity.
*Rather poignant that Google chooses to illustrate the dimensions of this shiny totem by invoking seven Saturn V rockets.