Debt, Deficit, and the 14th Amendment

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – If you don’t want the debt ceiling increased and if you want to force these guys onto a diet, then the Republicans that are in charge of the House of Representin’ hold the key.  Of course, you have to have the advice and consent of the Senate.  The Senate, run by the other party, is not going to go along with this; thus, there is every possibility there’s going to be a government shutdown.  Either there’s going to be a shutdown or a last-minute deal that’s going to kick the can down the road. Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  You heard the president say that he’s perfectly willing to violate his oath of office and create a brand-new amendment to the Constitution.  If Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid ask him to exercise his own authority over increasing the debt limit, he is happy to do so, meaning that the United States Senate, the minority and majority leaders of the United States Senate seemingly are okay with what amounts to an amendment to the U.S. Constitution and a power that could be granted to the President of the United States that he does not have.  But we’re not going to go through the actual process of amending; we’re just going to give you the power and we’re not going to do anything about it when you take it and abuse it. So he’s asked this question thirteen minutes into the presentation of non- and mistruth.  He’s asked thirteen minutes in if he’s going to invoke the 14^th Amendment and seize the power that he allegedly has under it.

[start audio clip]

President Obama: Chuck Todd, NBC?

Reporter Chuck Todd: As you know, the Senate Democrats, Harry Reid, sent you a letter begging you essentially to consider some sort of executive action on this debt ceiling issue. I know you’ve said you’re not negotiating on it. Your administration has ruled out the various ideas that have been out there, the 14^th Amendment. Just this morning, one of the House Democratic leaders, Jim Clyburn, asked you to use the 14^th Amendment, and even said sometimes that’s what it takes. He brought up the Emancipation Proclamation as saying it took executive action when Congress wouldn’t act, and he compared the debt ceiling to that. Are you considering a plan B? If not, why not?

President Obama: Well, Chuck, the issue here is whether or not America pays its bills. We are not a deadbeat nation. [Mike: Yes, we are.] There’s a very simple solution to this. Congress authorizes us to pay our bills. Now, if the House and the Senate want to give me the authority so that they don’t have to take these tough votes, if they want to put the responsibility on me to raise the debt ceiling, I’m happy to take it. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, had a proposal like that last year. I’m happy to accept it. If they want to keep this responsibility, then they need to go ahead and get it done. There are no magic tricks here. There are no loopholes. There are no easy outs. This is a matter of Congress authorizes spending.

[end audio clip]

Mike:  Then he gets into the explanation I already played.  If the Senate wants him to do it, [mocking Obama] “I don’t want the job, but if they want me to do it, I’ll do it.”  Here’s what the 14^th Amendment says.  By the way, I’m not going to get into this right now, but the 14^th Amendment was never ratified, not legally.  You cannot have as a condition or readmission into a union ratification of the 14^th Amendment and then be in compliance with Article V of the Constitution that specifies how an amendment can be ratified.  Only a state of the union can ratify an amendment.  You can’t have: We’ll let you back in, but you have to ratify the 14^th Amendment first.  Well, how can you ratify it if you’re not a state?  As I said, there’s ample scholarly work out there, some on our website.  Here’s what they’re referring to, the radical Republicans, let’s make sure that the evil, despicable South is totally subjugated forevermore and write this thing called the 14^th Amendment.

[reading]

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.

[end reading]

Mike:  In other words, if we run up any debt in putting down your new country that you formed, your new federation of union or of sovereign states brought together in a union called the confederacy, if we incurred any debts here, you have to help us pay them back.  We had to put your little rebellion down.  Number one, it wasn’t a rebellion because they left that government.  A rebellion would have been trying to overthrow that government or take it over.  No such thing occurred.  The Southern states left.  They formed their own government.  By definition, that is an act of passivity.  It is not an act of aggression.

That notwithstanding, nothing in that article says the president is conferred any kind of debt payment authority.  Nothing in there says anything of the sort.  All it says is you can’t question the debts.  Why didn’t they want the debts questioned?  They didn’t want anyone saying: What’s this payment here?  What’s this payment here to Chuck Todd, Sr.?  It’s just one of those guys we had to pay off back during the struggle against the South.  Basically it was a giant we’re going to continue subjugating you for as long as it takes to repay the debts we ran up in Mr. Lincoln’s war.  That’s what that really means.

If you want a full history of this, you can read Raoul Berger’s book Government by Judiciary.  He covers the important parts of the debates that went on in the 37^th Congress, mainly in the United States Senate.  The debates then went on over the wording and purpose of Amendment 14 will be crystal clear on what this means.  There’s nothing in here that says you have to run up debt, nothing that says the president gets to decide, nothing of the sort.  Basically don’t question the debts.  If we run a bill up and we agree we have to pay it, we’re going to pay it.  That’s what the amendment says.  It doesn’t confer any new authority on anyone.  How do you discharge a debt?  You’d have to have an appropriation.  Where do you get an appropriation from?

Remember, one part of the Constitution cannot inviolate or make void another unless it’s stated so in an amendment.  Does this alter Article I, Section 5: all bills for raising revenues originate in the House?  No, it doesn’t, and Obama knows it.  He says this several times during the press conference.  [mocking Obama] “Congress is gonna have to act.  Congress has gotta do this.  Congress has gotta do that.”  There is tacit admission along the way in yesterday’s press conference that it is the members of the House of Representin’ that ultimately hold the key here.  If you don’t want the debt ceiling increased and if you want to force these guys onto a diet, then the Republicans that are in charge of the House of Representin’ hold the key.  Of course, you have to have the advice and consent of the Senate.  The Senate, run by the other party, is not going to go along with this; thus, there is every possibility there’s going to be a government shutdown.  Either there’s going to be a shutdown or a last-minute deal that’s going to kick the can down the road.

This grandstanding by the president serves no purpose other than to make it seem, in the public’s eye, that it is an “us vs. them.”  The fact of the matter is, when a debt is incurred on behalf of the United States, it is incurred on behalf of all the citizens.  We all have to pay for this.  We’re all basically being put into involuntary servitude.  If you say no, which you should, and then they say, [mocking] “We heard what you had to say.  Too bad, sit down,” and they compel you to say yes, number one, they’ve subjugated you, and number two, you are now responsible for this.  They’re not going to go looking for members of Congress when the debt comes due or when the interest on the debt comes due.  Nobody is going to go knocking on Congress’s door.  They’re going to say: What did you guys put up for collateral?  Oh, you put up the work and toil of the American sheeple, that’s who you put up.  This is being done by and on the authority of the people of the United States.

If there is any self-government left, then the appropriate action should be that the people should rise up en masse and say no and demand that this not be done any longer.  Don’t do it.  [mocking] “Mike, what are we going to do about Social Security?  What are we going to do about Medicare?  What about all the bills and debts?”  You’re just going to have to make arrangements for those.  There is not enough money on Earth to meet the United States’ obligation.  If we took all the money from the rest of the world, we couldn’t meet our obligations.  What is there left to be done here?

There are a couple of options.  None of them are attractive.  None of them are going to produce immediate safety and happiness.  None of them are going to produce immediate prosperity.  That’s the depressing part of all this.  Regardless of which path you choose here, and unfortunately our path has already been chosen.  They’ve already made their minds up.  They already know what the deal is.  They already know what’s going to transpire.  Ultimately the debt ceiling is going to be raised.  Ultimately the borrowing authority is going to be there.  Ultimately Obama is going to get his way.  Congress is going to acquiesce.  If they don’t acquiesce, then they’re going to put themselves on the firing line and set it up so that we have a one-party national legislature.  That’s what’s going to happen here.  It is all just so tragic.

I was thinking about this.  What would the Democratic Party do with carte blanche authority over all federal affairs for an extended period of time?  What would be the fun in that?  They wouldn’t have anyone to blame when it didn’t work out.  They may try and blame someone else, but who would they have to blame if they ran the House, ran the Senate, controlled the White House, picked all the judges, controlled the judiciary, managed the affairs of State, managed the affairs of regulation in all the states?  Who would they have to blame?

Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, that wouldn’t matter because who took the blame for the tens of millions of lives that were snuffed out after the Bolshevik Revolution, during the deadly times that occurred in the Soviet Union under various leaders, Stalin, Brezhnev, Khrushchev?  Who took the blame for that?  No one.  If you try and blame someone, you get shipped away in a boxcar into the middle of Siberia in the middle of the night.  During Mao Tse-tung’s five-year grand plan, who took the blame?  Mao didn’t take the blame.  Again, if you protested too mightily, you found yourself in the middle of the most remote places in China, if not just outright dead.

We are nearing the point here, ladies and gentlemen, I warn you again.  This is a sincere warning, not a radio talk show host warning.  This is not meant for entertainment or hyperbolic purposes.  This is meant as a warning.  We are very near the place where there is complete and total control of the national legislative apparatus by one, deceitful, corrupt party.  Yes, there will be Republicans, and there are Republicans in that corrupt, deceitful party.  When the ship of state launches its inexorable course towards absolute despotism, nothing can stand in its way.  This is one of the things that you’ll learn if you make your way through some of the writing of Ludwig von Mises, I believe in his book Socialism.  He lays out that once you start taking things over and once the market stops functioning and the government takes over, because it perverts processes that otherwise would not be perverted, what ultimately happens is that all processes become perverted.  The ultimate tyranny, which was for a benevolent purpose that started the entire process, then ultimately becomes the only process.

That’s what’s happening here.  There doesn’t seem to be any effort whatsoever to stop this for the sake of the future dead in its track today.  Instead, because we must be ruled by one party, the corrupt party, in one location, Washington, DC, and because that’s the way this thing allegedly, the Constitution, says it must be, then that’s the way it must be.  What if significant parts of that are incorrect?  What if significant parts of that statement are basically lies that have been fabricated?  What if no such document ever issued or ever made any such claim or promise?  What would you do then?  You’d be faced with either a state of despotism and tyranny and what to do about it, or you could acquiesce, give in, and say: How bad can it really get?  I suggest to you that we’re about to find out just how bad it can really get.

Of course, if we had real statesmen who have studied any amount of world history and can see giant letters that are written on a wall, if we had any level of statesmen in the several states, they would see what is about to occur, what is inevitable, that must occur after all these events, and they would begin their animations to try to stop it.  There are a few that have begun said animations.  There are not nearly enough.  They would also be egged on by the people who would begin said animations.  There are some people that have begun that but not nearly enough.  Pray, my friends, pray.

End Mike Church Show Transcript