This is the part that really caught me off guard in the opinion. Folks rightly focus on, well, the top-line. But this is just a complete misunderstanding of executive privilege or where it comes from, and is patently, grossly invented for one man and for one case
Everybody makes jokes about ordering drone strikes on Mar-a-Lago, etc. which is obviously insane.
But Biden should be using the ruling to "fire a shot across the bow" on some policy matters, if only to highlight the extent of SCOTUS' partisan corruption.
I think it would be hilarious if he had the 6 conservative SCOTUS justices’ catalytic converters stolen, refined, and minted into a coin that erased a significant fraction of the national debt.
It doesn’t work—part of the problem with a creative solution is that the legal uncertainty itself would have calamitous effects, even if you’re ultimately vindicated. But don’t put anything past this court either
So my longer argument is that its value as an idea (versus, say, a 14A claim to blow past the limit) is precisely that it sidesteps the calamitous uncertainty of going past the debt ceiling by any other means
I think you can even make a pretty non-trivial argument he should do it /outside/ of a debt-ceiling fight (but as a practical matter, they never would)
It would give the justices time to try selling coin bits for $0.167 trillion and then announce how they’re accepting openly ridiculous claims of standing from persons harmed by having a solvent government in order to reverse Trump v. US
Folks really hate the "mint the coin" stuff because it feels like (and involves) a gimmick, but the basic observation underpinning it is actually very smart and quite profound: at the fiscal level, seigniorage and debt are identical.
Concretely, if you have a $20 in your wallet, the government owes you $20. And, perversely enough, if the Fed has $1m in its account, the government owes itself $1m.
We’re really all just exchanging promises (made by someone else).
“Thanks for filling my gas tank, here’s a promise someone transferred to me that you can transfer to someone else, if you want”
Not clear to me where the first promise lies.
Historically, ancient beyond imagining
Conceptually, you could say that the first promise is the government's promise that you can give them some of these glorified IOUs to discharge your tax obligation
If it were me I'd just enter the next debt ceiling fight with a "I minted a $100tn coin. If Congress wants to default the country, it may vote to do so. And I remain constrained by their appropriations. This is not new money I can spend. But the country will not default by accident on my watch"
"Congress can constrain spending by appropriations, and it must affirmatively vote for every dollar I spend. But I reject that it can default the country through inaction. It is not sustainable. It is not sensible. Nobody wants this. It is time to end this farce."
it's not a crime and it's probably legal (given the two absurd statutes in play) but getting around the debt ceiling by ordering the mint to coin a roll of $100B platinum coins the size of dimes and ordering the Treasury to accept them at face value
Raise the debt ceiling to One Centillion Dollars.
One centillion is a 1 followed by 303 zeros, or 1 followed by 600 zeros (depending on the system used).
The advantage is it's hard for R's make a number with "one cent..." in the name feel scary. Printing out all those zeros will just look silly.
