July 07, 2011 11:33 PM UTC

Debt Ceiling Fight: Impeach Obama!

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• by: Colorado Pols

Cup your face gently in your hands as Think Progress reports:

Last month, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner suggested that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional because of Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.” If the Obama administration were to embrace this view, the country could avoid default in the event that the debt ceiling is not raised by the Aug. 2 deadline.

Republicans, who would lose an opportunity to inflict major budget cuts if the debt ceiling is declared unconstitutional, have been highly critical of the idea. Yesterday, Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel reported that Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC) said it would be “an impeachable act” if President Obama declares the debt ceiling is unconstitutional.

ThinkProgress spoke with one of Scott’s colleagues, Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX), today about the matter. Olson told us that others in the GOP caucus are also discussing impeachment and that Scott is “not a lonely voice” on the issue…

Impeachment threats–that’s the way to bring the two sides together, isn’t it? Without hazarding an opinion on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s theory that the debt limit may be unconstitutional, we do note that Geithner’s not the President–perhaps the time to start making threats is after the President says or does something? Maybe try to refute Geithner’s opinion instead of going straight for the nuclear option? It just seems to us that this kind of rhetoric during negotiations might be bad for…negotiations. But it is red meat for those who want to impeach Obama over basically anything–they don’t want to negotiate.

With that said, much like the Colorado Supreme Court ruling a couple of years ago that clarified provisions of TABOR in favor of sensible policy, we have to say we don’t really mind when it’s found that a higher law says engineered government dysfunction isn’t legal–because government, despite what Grover Norquist says, is supposed to be able to function.