Bill Clinton says he’d solve the debt ceiling problem by invoking the 14th amendment (which establishes that the “validity of the public debt… cannot be questioned”) the U.S. from defaulting if an agreement couldn’t be reached: “‘I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy.'”
Clinton makes 2 separate claims here: 1) that the Constitution is clear (presumably he means clear in its agreement with his position) and 2) that it would be “crazy” if he were wrong anyway.
Clinton is wrong for the reason Lawrence Tribe noted a couple of weeks ago (and David Frum noted before him):
In theory, Congress could pay debts not only by borrowing more money, but also by exercising its powers to impose taxes, to coin money or to sell federal property. If the president could usurp the congressional power to borrow, what would stop him from taking over all these other powers, as well?
Obviously the president cannot say “oops, it looks like we have bought more stuff than we can afford, I’m just going to bypass congress and impose new taxes to pay for the stuff.” Why, then, does Clinton think the president can bypass Congress to borrow more money to achieve the same purpose? My guess is that the 2nd reason he cited (that it would be “crazy” if he were wrong) is clouding his ability to see that his 1st reason (the only substantive one) is bogus.