Raising the Debt Ceiling -- what should the GOP do?

In the next month or so, the US is going to run up against the ceiling on issuing debt. At that point, unless the ceiling is raised by Congressional action, there will be an economic cataclysm. In short, the USA will be forced to default on payment of interest and principal for the outstanding treasury bonds, bills and notes, and event which will push the world economic system over a cliff. Spending by the feds for everything else, like salaries for the military, social security payments, medicare, and border security will also get cut back drastically. Foreign governments and companies holding US debt will also find that their investments have declined dramatically in value. Just imagine what the Chinese will do if the trillion dollars of bonds that they have are suddenly worthless. So it is clear that it would be a crazy move to refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

So what should the GOP do? Many of the tea party caucus do not want to approve a further increase to the debt ceiling. Nevertheless, refusal to do so would be a disaster for the economy.

My suggestion is this: Congress should take a vote on raising the debt ceiling but should couple the change in the debt limit with a postponement of all funding for the implementation of Obamacare and a mandate to the Obama administration that it seek immediate review by the Supreme Court of the judgment holding the law unconstitutional. The reasoning here is quite obvious: if the federal government spends tens of billions of dollars to implement Obamacare and it is then finally held unconstitutional, all of that expenditure will have been wasted. Right now, the country is in no shape to waste a hundred billion dollars implementing a law that will be struck down. Indeed, after the holding in a suit brought by 27 of the states found that Obamacare was unconstitutional, the Justice Department decided not to push for a quick Supreme Court review, but rather to go through the appeal to the circuit court of appeals instead. That appeal, however, will almost certainly be followed by an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Obama will never agree to the repeal of Obamacare, so making that the condition is a non starter. On the other hand, an expedited Supreme Court review could be completed within a year. That means that it would only be a one year delay in implementation if the law is upheld and an enormous savings if the law is struck down. Even Obama might be forced to agree to this.