Avoiding Armageddon

The negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, which threaten to roil markets around the globe should House Republicans and President Obama not come to an agreement, could be rendered moot by the president with a stroke of his pen.

John Dimsdale Here's how the argument goes: When Congress passes spending bills, it knows there isn't enough cash to pay for it all. By approving those obligations anyway, Congress is implicitly committing the government to borrow the money to meet them. By later imposing a limit on borrowing -- which is what the debt ceiling is -- Congress is illegally counteracting its own laws.

Norman Ornstein: Let's face it, the reality is having a separate vote on the debt ceiling makes no sense.

Norman Ornstein follows Congress and the executive branch for the American Enterprise Institute.

Ornstein: The debt ceiling is a reflection of the debts that you have already incurred. And every time Congress passes a budget, it's obligating itself to future debts.

So when it approves a budget, Congress requires the president to meet those obligations -- by borrowing if necessary. If he continues to borrow, the president would have to ignore the second congressional mandate: to not breach the debt limit.

In the inevitable legal challenge to such a decision, University of Baltimore law school professor Garrett Epps cites a clause in the 14th amendment to the Constitution.

Garrett Epps: Section four says the validity of the public debt of the United States, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties in suppression of rebellion, shall not be questioned.

That amendment was adopted just after the Civil War when southern lawmakers were questioning the union army's debts.

Epps: That language would provide a serious basis for going outside the congressional debt ceiling process.

But snubbing the debt ceiling would be a "nuclear option," says Princeton historian Julian Zelizer. He doubts President Obama will go for it.