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Comment by xmprt | Hacker News Reader

I get how the system works but I also don't understand how congress can force the executive branch to take out a loan but also sets a debt ceiling which could shut down the government unless it's raised by congress. So congress blames the president for taking out debt, which they force, and refuse to raise taxes to reduce the deficit. Something in that loop is broken. I don't think the president should have unilateral power but I also don't think congress should be able to set both the spending and the debt limit.

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Then what you want is an amendment to the constitution. There's a process for that; this ain't it.

I agree. I just think we need to focus more on congress' role in this. The checks and balances only work if we force congress to act as a check and as long as congress keeps voting along party lines and doing the president's bidding, not much is going to change. It shouldn't be normal for the senate to confirm radically unqualified people to positions of power just because the president nominates them.

we can focus on the future when the present isn't tearing down before us.

Sad thing is no one is really talking about this in any branch, so it's just theory crafting until then.

if you want to change that you need a huge voter base that is anti-partisan. Given that we can barely mobilize within parties to protest properly: good luck.

That disconnect is why some people argue the debt limit is unconstitutional - Congress authorized the spending and if they didn’t authorize enough revenue the executive is still obligated to spend regardless.

To do otherwise the executive has to pick and choose what to fund.

The topic usually gets raised every time we get close to a debt limit. If we truly broached the limit it’s possible the Biden and Obama administrations would have just ignored the limit since the consequences of the full faith and credit of the US failing are so dire and there’s a solid argument it’s the least bad option Constitutionally.

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