volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
@StOnSoftware @LFpete @rbreich
That there can't be a debt ceiling is going to be news to all of us who are talking about the debt ceiling that exists 🙂
Right, but the US has enough income to pay the debts it has already incurred, which the president is constitutionally required to pay.
Right, he won't be able to borrow more, but he will be able, and he will be required to, service the debt that has already been entered into.
No. Politicizing the branch that is specifically supposed to be above politics is just a bad idea.
Judge the justices based on their work, not based on any of this personal stuff.
All of their opinions are public. We can read them ourselves. THAT is what they should be held accountable for, not their personal lives, not this TV drama nonsense.
I really don't care what a justice does in his free time. I only care about his rulings.
No that gets it backwards.
The Treasury has plenty of money to pay its debts, Biden's own Treasury says so, and yet President Biden is threatening default if he is not given this extra power to borrow.
He's the one who wrote the ransom note.
No that's factually false. If you pull up the documents directly from the legislature, they were not punished for peaceful protests.
They were punished for breaking the rules that they themselves had already agreed to, and so the accountability that they also agreed to was triggered.
You can't just stand in the way of the democratic process without facing any consequences.
@Pat That's not how the federal government works.
You can't overturn a constitutional matter with a simple majority of one house of the legislature.
@TCatInReality @crooksandliars
You're missing that it's not a case of one law taking precedent over other.
Congressional appropriation laws are permission to spend what is there. The president still has permission to spend even if he mathematically can't.
It's like, I can write a law giving you permission to flap your arms and fly around the room, and even if that's not possible, it's still the law. You still absolutely do have that permission. That you can't actually use that permission doesn't mean you don't have permission.
So really it's not one law taking precedent over another. It's economic reality, math, taking precedent over legislation, and that's exactly how it is supposed to work.
@TCatInReality @crooksandliars
Why couldn't it possibly be constitutional? Rather, it absolutely IS constitutional!
It's just the democratic process at work.
If we elect people to shut down the government, well, that is the word of the people. We get what we vote for.
@StOnSoftware @LFpete @rbreich
It's not, though, and that's the whole issue here.
The federal government never knows exactly how much tax revenue it will bring in every year. If nothing else, the unpredictability of the economy means it might bring in a lot more this year or a lot less this year.
So deficit spending is linked to unpredictable levels of taxation, so borrowing levels cannot be derived from other decisions Congress makes.
That's why the power to borrow has to be separate from anything else.
@cathyginter@universeodon.com
Most of those are state programs, so it's a bit silly to point to the federal Congress as impacting them.
Well yeah, but given that the Treasury will have the income to pay the debts, they would be horrified that the president is proposing not paying them and threatening the country with default as a rhetorical stunt.
And so many politicians and people are buying into that rhetoric.
Right, carrying too much debt should be addressed while making budgets, but the last Congress didn't do it, so what do we do now? That's the big question we are dealing with now.
The last Congress really let us down. This Congress is dealing with the mess left over.
Anyway, we cannot do away with the debt ceiling stuff since the debt ceiling is simply the word we use to describe the permission the legislative branch gives to the executive branch to borrow money. It is just the word for permission being granted.
The Treasury has plenty of revenue incoming to pay its debts, so defaulting is not on the table unless the president decides to default.
The GOP isn't pursuing default, and doesn't even have the ability to pursue it since Democrats hold the White House.
Whether or not the debt ceiling is raised, the Treasury can pay its debts. The rest is up to the Democrat in charge of the executive branch.
@TCatInReality @crooksandliars
The problem is that the laws the last Congress passed are impossible to execute.
The last Congress ordered the president to spend a bunch of money that doesn't exist. So what is he supposed to do with that? If I give you $20 and order you to spend $50 of it, what do you do?
Well fortunately with a system of coequal branches the president doesn't actually have to execute impossible laws. He just does his best, and is subject to impeachment anyway.
But there is no room for a SCOTUS challenge there.
The thing is, the US Treasury will have enough revenue to pay its debts, so defaulting is absolutely not on the table unless the president decides for himself to default.
@StOnSoftware @LFpete @rbreich
The debt ceiling is just what we call the amount of money that Congress has authorized the president to borrow.
You say the ceiling needs to go away, but really it can't go away because it is simply the power that one branch of government gives to another.
The Treasury says the Treasury payout doesn't match how much Congress budgets.
On their website they release monthly numbers showing so.
Congress doesn't have to raise the debt ceiling. That's the whole point.
That the credit rating was downgraded shows that the debt ceiling doesn't have to be raised. So your own observation disproves the claim.
If the debt ceiling had to be raised and the Treasury had to pay these debts then there would not have been a downgrade. That there was a downgrade shows that the story isn't true.
Or to put it another way, this is not a question of politics, it's a question of law, and the FDA broke the law.
The FDA is free to put peer-reviewed data to the forefront any day now, but under this president so far it is declining to do so.
So we're left with courts having to deal with an administration acting in violation of law, and putting politics aside, there is no good solution to that mess.
The Treasury absolutely does pick and choose what government spends money on.
Keep in mind that every single year the Treasury does not spend exactly what Congress has appropriated.
That fact alone disproves the idea that Congress spends money.
Congress has the power to control access to the purse, but once Congress authorizes access to the purse, it's an Executive Branch function to actually spend money.
In short, what you're saying can easily be debunked by simply looking at the difference between what Congress appropriates versus what the Treasury spends.
The problem with that is that it speaks to normalizing an administration being above the law.
When a president is breaking the law, that shouldn't be off limits to the courts. That's why we have courts in the first place, to rule on laws, especially those created by our democratic processes.
And to emphasize based on that point, if the law is bad then we need to change the law. If it shouldn't have been illegal for the FDA to approve this drug despite its own scientific misgivings, then we should put forward legislation to change those legal protections against questionable drugs.
But as it stands, that is the law on the books, and it's tough to say that judges should not be enforcing those laws, that presidents should be able to just ignore them.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
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