Invoke the 14th — and End the Debt Standoff

washingtonpost.com — On its current course, the United States is four weeks away from defaulting on its debt for the first time in its history. If that happens, spending and investment will all but disappear. Social Security checks will stop being mailed. Everything from military pay to food inspection will be compromised, if not fully cut off. Millions of unemployed or underemployed will be joined by millions more. In theory, this is unthinkable, and it will be remedied by reasonable political parties making reasonable concessions across the negotiating table. But Republicans have been negotiating in bad faith, unwilling to compromise even an inch on their extremist and absolutist positions. Some are no longer willing to come to the table at all. With that backdrop, President Obama may find that there is only one course left to avoid a global economic calamity: Invoke Section 4 of the 14th Amendment.

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