John Carney is a rare voice of reason at CNBC.
Here's the conclusion to his defense of the authority of Congress over appropriations, taxes and borrowing:
The logic of the opponents of the debt ceiling is that Congress implicitly approves borrowing when it votes for spending and taxing laws. By this same logic the President should have the power to tax unilaterally based on spending authorizations and borrowing limits. Likewise, the President should have spending powers based on directions to federal agencies in the absence of legislative appropriations.
This isn't the logic of the Constitution's framers, who built a system in which Congressional mandates do not imply a power to spend, in which appropriations do not imply a power to tax, and in which neither mandates nor appropriations imply a power to borrow. Each requires distinct, specific Congressional authorization.
The framers built this around a revolutionary idea: that these powers, which had so often been held by kings, should be held by legislatures. Authority that still rests in the hands of the executive branches of government across much of the world is, in the United States, in the hands of legislators.
This cannot be undone with a bill. It would require a constitutional amendment. And, of course, a rejection of the framers's wisdom about who should have the power to borrow on the credit of the United States.
In a word, the president of the United States isn't a king. The current one just thinks he is.
