Fed likely to keep raising rates

Re:Fed likely to keep raising rates by toasterlovin on Friday October 12, 2018 @01:51AM (#18199533)

The utter political impossibility of what you just described (despite it making total sense) makes be believe that, if the founding fathers could do it over again, the constitution would probably include a provision prohibiting government borrowing except in the case of defensive wars.

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Re:Fed likely to keep raising rates by repolfx on Friday October 12, 2018 @01:18PM (#18202976)

It would just have been amended out. Look at the debt ceiling.

You can't really stop a government from borrowing except by taking away the power to print money. Grab your popcorn and watch Italy a.k.a. "Greece: Part II" over the next year to see what happens when government overspending meets currency it doesn't control.

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Re:Fed likely to keep raising rates by dragonwriter on Friday October 12, 2018 @01:27PM (#18203052)

> It would just have been amended out. Look at the debt ceiling.

The debt ceiling isn't in the Constitution, and, as such, doesn't really demonstrate anything relevant. OTOH, all wars are characterized as defensive, and the US has usually been at war, particularly in the times of concerning deficits; aside from—if construed to require formal declaration of war for borrowing—making declarations of war more common, I can't see that the proposed restriction really would have changed much even if it existed and weren't amended out.

> You can't really stop a government from borrowing except by taking away the power to print money

Taking away the power to print money prevents monetizing debt, but it doesn't prevent borrowing (it actually eases borrowing, which is one of the reasons for having independent central banks separating monetary from fiscal policy; the degree of perceived risk of debt monetization makes borrowing more expensive, so controlling that risk facilitates borrowing.)

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Re:Fed likely to keep raising rates by repolfx on Sunday October 14, 2018 @12:57PM (#18213817)

Yes, I know the debt ceiling isn't in the constitution. My point is that when faced with a legal limit to borrowing Congress always voids it. It would have happened a long time ago if the restriction was constitutional in nature.

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Re:Fed likely to keep raising rates by dragonwriter on Monday October 15, 2018 @02:23AM (#18217772)

Congress can't amend the Constitution, and it takes a much higher bar for them to even propose amendments than to pass normal legislation. So, no, you can't use the debt ceiling (which isn't even nominally a legislative limit on Congress—which would be unconstitutional, as Congress cannot bind future Congresses—but an additional limit on the executive alongside budget limits) to make an argument about the prospects if there were a Constitutional limit on Congress’ part to authorize borrowing.

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