Debt Ceilings, Bombs, Cliffs and the Trillion Dollar Coin

Needless to say, the US has a long-term debt problem.  The problem is long-term both in the sense that it pertains to the next several decades rather than to this year.  (Indeed, the deficit/GDP ratio has been falling since 2009, despite the weakness of the economy.)   The problem is also long-term in the sense that we have known about it for a long time; it was clear in 1991 and should still have been clear in 2001.

It should be almost as needless-to-say that the approaching debt ceiling bomb is not helpful in solving our fiscal situation, any more so than were previous standoffs:  the January 1, 2013, fiscal cliff; before that, the August 2011 debt ceiling standoff, which led Standard and Poor’s to downgrade the credit rating of US debt for the first time in history; and before that, the 1995 shutdown of the government, which largely discredited Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

The current debt ceiling bomb is, of course, another attempt to hold the country hostage under threat of blowing us all up.  The conflict is usually phrased as a question of ideological polarization, a battle between fiscal conservatives and their opponents.  This familiar frame does not seem right to me.  There is in fact no correlation or consistency between the practice of federal fiscal discipline and the political rhetoric, either across states or across time.

What are the demands of the hostage-takers?   Even if there existed an explicit ransom letter detailing specific severe spending cuts, in exchange for which it credibly offered to raise the debt ceiling, President Obama’s refusal to negotiate under such conditions would be fully justified.  But the situation is worse than that.  There is no specific set of demands, and never has been.  I truly believe there does not exist any set of spending cuts that the blackmailers would accept if they came from Obama.

Remember the occasions in the past when he has announced that he will accept the Republican position on some issue, only to have his opponents switch places, saying “if you are in favor of it, we are against it”?    One example was the idea of Obamacare itself, which originally came from conservative think tanks and Mitt Romney.   Another example was the proposal for an automatic version of what in February 2010 became the Simpson-Bowles Commission.

There are only so many dollars that can be cut out of PBS and foreign aid.   If, hypothetically, Obama were to come out in support of severe cuts in agricultural supports, oil and gas subsidies, Medicare benefits and other programs, Republicans would attack him for proposing hurtful cuts. (Remember attacks on Obama’s health plan for non-existent “death panels” and fictional cuts to Medicare benefits?)  Simultaneously, Republicans would say that the cuts were not big enough.

What would be enough?   Some debt crazies have said they think it would be fine if we failed to raise the debt ceiling.  Some are crazy enough to think it is not a problem if the US government were to default on its legal obligations.  (They may not realize that defaulting on the bill for office supplies that you ordered from Staples is as bad as  missing interest payments on your debt.)  But some want to enforce a balanced budget immediately:  the refusal to allow the government to borrow any more is not just a negotiating tactic, but is the outcome they want.  This is crazy in light of the adverse economic and financial impact (which would be much worse than that of the fiscal cliff that we just dodged two weeks ago).

But the prize for ultimate insanity must go to those who want to eliminate the budget deficit rapidly and insist on doing it without raising taxes, cutting defense, or cutting programs for seniors.  These people deserve the label “deranged” because what they are demanding is for a literally false proposition to be true.  It is arithmetically impossible to eliminate the budget deficit if the cuts are to come primarily in non-defense discretionary spending.

To be very clear, I don’t think most Republicans believe all of this.  Certainly my many economist friends who are Republicans do not.  The truly “deranged” people are just a subset of the “crazy” people, who are in turn a subset of those who are unwise enough to favor the debt ceiling threat as a tactic, who are in turn a subset of the Republican Party.   The problem is that it is this minority of a minority that is holding the whole country hostage.  The size of the minority evidently shrunk after the August 2011 debt ceiling debacle, after the November 2012 election, and after the January 1 cliff.   But it still has its finger on the grenade pin.

So that leads us to the question of tactics.  A variety of stratagems have been proposed for the White House to use to defuse the bomb, if it comes to that.  These are all designed as ways that the federal government can continue to meet its legal obligations beyond March, even if the Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling.   While these unconventional proposals are beyond anything that would have been contemplated under normal conditions, they must be considered, in light of the correspondingly absurd situation in which the country would find itself.  If the Congress refuses to act, the White House would have to choose between two contradictory laws: the one that Congress passed to authorize spending and taxes versus the debt ceiling law that apparently prohibits the government from borrowing to make up the difference between spending and taxes.  Following the implication of the latter law would have disastrous impacts on the country and the world if obeyed.

• Given the contradiction between the two laws, President Obama could just ignore the debt ceiling and follow the direct implications of the spending and taxation laws. I am not qualified to judge the legality of this course of action. The courts would eventually have to sort it out. The hope is that by then the Congress would have come to its senses and raised the debt limit.




• In the meantime, the White House might try invoking the 14^th Amendment, as Bill Clinton suggested at the time of the last debt ceiling standoff, in 2011.  The Amendment includes the passage “The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.” Again the Supreme Court would eventually have to decide the issue.




• The Treasury could issue “IOUs” to the office supply stores, soldiers, Social Security recipients, etc. The IOUs would just be written acknowledgements of a legal fact: that the government owes these people money. Maybe the Federal Reserve could let it be known that it will honor these IOUs. (There must be something wrong with this, or somebody besides me would have proposed it already.)




• The government writes an option to buy all its property and buildings for $1, and then sells that very valuable option to the Federal Reserve for something like its true value. This proposal has been made by the Yale constitutional expert Jack Balkin last time around, from which I infer that it is not obviously contrary to the law.




• And finally, the most colorful of the proposals: the trillion dollar coin. The Treasury would exercise its legal authority to mint a commemorative coin made out of platinum, with a face value of $1 trillion. The Federal Reserve would then buy the coin for $ 1 trillion, allowing the Treasury to pay its obligations by drawing down its checking account at the Fed up to that amount. This proposal originated in the blogosphere and was one of those anointed by Balkin in July 2011. Paul Krugman greatly elevated its prominence by declaring his support earlier this month.

Contrary to some fears, none of these proposals need result in the money supply being any larger than it would otherwise be.  The Federal Reserve determines the money supply.  If it creates a new component of money by buying a platinum coin, a property option or IOUs, it can offset it by shrinking other components of the money supply by the same amount, leaving the total unchanged.

The Obama Administration so far is eschewing gimmicks, and is calling on the Congress to do its job in a responsible manner.  This is the right approach.

But in the event that the minority does succeed in blocking a debt increase, it may be worth turning to some legal gimmick to avert the financial and economic catastrophe.   Of the five proposals bulleted above, the platinum coin is the one that seems to have the most experts currently expressing belief in its legality.  It is certainly clever.  Unfortunately, it would probably be the worst from a political standpoint.  The reason is - I am guessing here - there is a fairly high overlap between the debt crazies (defined above) and people who have paranoid conspiracy theories that relate to the Fed, money and precious metals (especially gold, but platinum is too close for comfort). For all I know, some of these people are the same who believe that Obama was born outside the U.S.  (That would fall into the category of deranged propositions, also defined above; but there is no need for us to go there.)  When you are dealing with a crazy person, it is best to avoid anything that would pour gasoline on the flames of his paranoia.  We actually want to win back some of those people who are merely misguided but not really insane.  After all, just getting past the current debt cliff wouldn’t solve the problem, with sequester and shutdown deadlines also looming.   So I’d go for some other legal gimmick, one that would be less likely to feed the paranoia and more likely to continuing chipping away at popular support for the extremists.

[I have been interviewed this week on the trillion dollar coin by Boston magazine and radio station WGBH.].