The Treasury Department will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to get around the debt ceiling. If they did, the Federal Reserve would not accept it.
That’s the bottom line of the statement that Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, gave me today. “Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” he said.
And if you’re looking for other clever interventions, there aren’t going to be any:
As White House Press Secretary Jay Carney put it, “there are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills or they can fail to act and put the nation into default.”
There will be no end run around raising the debt ceiling, period. I think a lot of us wanted the Obama Administration to make the whole thing go away, but now we’re going to have an ugly showdown with possibly serious consequences for the economy and our children’s future, all because Republicans want to chisel a few more bucks out of the hands of the poors.
Baud
Good.
Schlemizel
But . . . but . . . but President Obama promised there would be no showdown, that he wouldn’t let the goopers hold us hostage over the debt ceiling! And people here got excited about magic ponies to the point that when I pointed out his style of management would not go for elaborate magical solutions I was blasted for not being sufficiently supportive by a couple of people.
Betty Cracker
Maybe this is what has to happen. It would be nice if a commemorative coin could make it all go away, but it doesn’t address the real problem, which is a gaggle of lunatics holding the country hostage because they don’t like the outcome of the elections.
Emma
Call me whatever you want, but I think the President has always had every intention to let it go this far. It’s a high-risk strategy, yes, but if by any combination of factors the Republicans can be broken on this one, it’s going to be much easier to break the whole debit ceiling crap once and for all. Like he broke them of the no-raising-taxes mantra.
Baud
@Schlemizel:
Snark, right? If not, please show proof.
Emma
@Schlemizel: You are a galloping jerk. Nobody ever said there wouldn’t be a showdown, since it’s not the president throwing a temper tantrum, and he cannot control what the Republicans do.
Do you really walk around with this much anger and contempt trapped inside? Or is my Sunday morning coffee-not-kicked-in-yet daze misreading the snark?
Percysowner
@Schlemizel:
No, what he said was he wasn’t going to negotiate over the debt ceiling. No Medicare cuts or Social Security cuts to get the Republicans to sign off on the debt ceiling. It’s a clean bill or nothing, I think. He could always change on this if the Repubs actually shut down the country, but for now I’m pretty sure those are his intentions.
lawguy
I always say that there is no negotiating strategy like giving away a major negotiating position before you really start. I am shocked that the President would do this. It is so unlike him.
reflectionephemeral
@Betty Cracker:
That is the ultimate problem, but we’re not going to make it go away with one vote on the debt ceiling. We need years of cultural & demographic change. I’d rather we mint a coin to avoid the hostage negotiations that will ensue, because they could be very bad for the economy in the short term– to say nothing of the consequences of an actual default. But, here we are. Obviously, hopefully the president’s got this right.
Gin & Tonic
@lawguy: If you ever thought that in a Barack Obama presidency the coin idea was a serious negotiating postion, please contact me off-list, as I have a real-estate opportunity in Brooklyn I want to talk to you about.
reflectionephemeral
@lawguy: Bruce Bartlett tweeted yesterday, “Administration strategy on everything: first take off the table any option that would increase its political leverage.”
aimai
In about five seconds the GOP will shove the country over the debt cliff, jump over while spreading their arms and flapping like crazy and just before everyone hits the floor they will start weeping and wailing “But the President should have just gone ahead and ignored us and printed the coin!! Why is this happening to meeeeeeee!”
aimai
MattF
A couple of days ago, Ezra Klein wrote a column about the platinum coin, and I had the somewhat unusual experience of agreeing with every single word:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/10/mr-president-dont-mint-that-platinum-coin/
The debt ceiling crisis is a political crisis, Obama is now in the best political position he has had since the start of his administration. Now is the time to face the problem directly– we may not succeed, but if not now, when?
redshirt
A trillion one dollar platinum coins then!
Chyron HR
Poor True Progressives, now they have to hastily rewrite their “Why does this tyrant insist on ignoring the will of Congress?” screeds.
c u n d gulag
That Waskawy Pwesident Obama’s trying to be Bugs Bunny to the Republican’s Daffy Duck.
He’s trying to set up that moment when Daffy screams, “SHOOT ME NOW! ! !”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Betty Cracker: That’s exactly why I didn’t want them to make the coin. Business will never let the Republicans default, and because of that, the way to break the Republican party in two is to force a vote on the debt ceiling.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@lawguy: But it wasn’t a negotiating position. “If you don’t raise the debt ceiling, I’m going to make it so that you have to fight with me over the debt ceiling later.” That’s not a negotiating position, that’s kicking the can down the road and then what, he mints another trillion dollar coin when the time comes?
No, the idea that there can be two ceilings on how much the country spends needs to end.
General Stuck
@Chyron HR:
They should rewrite it “Ignore us, We are fucking idiots”. Too stupid to see, or self important and must protest no matter what. Too ignorant to recognize not negotiating means not negotiating, and doing nothing is fighting back in this case, and the bravest road to take. No shortcuts, no magic coin tricks, no committing political suicide because clowns on your side are recommending that.
As long as the interest and necessary amount on principle is paid on our debts, we shouldn’t default. Obama would have to pick and choose which government spending projects deserve to be suspended the most, and which ones are vital to keep funded. Do any of the mouth breathing pro left prog wizards think the plutocrats will allow this to happen, or let alone continue?
Reading liberal blogs has become so tedious with the willful tribalism that is hollow on viable strategy, and full of cartwheels and somersaults, with creepy undertones of mockery of this black president, delivered via half serious dumb advice. It is getting harder to tell the progressives from the republicans these days.
Schlemizel
No, it wasn’t snark but you are missing my point. The President is not magic. He is limited by the other two branches of the government and what the American people feel strongly enough to demand.
His style, which works for him quiet well, is not one that was ever going to mint a coin or expand the reading of the 14th amendment. A lot of people here were exhibiting irrational exuberance about the coin idea instead of preparing for the coming showdown over the debt ceiling.
Nobody has any idea how this fight is going to end yet. We need to start early and put pressure on our Congress and Senate, not wait around for magical ponies to save us.
That is not a complaint about President Obama, its an admission of the limitations of his office that he can see quiet clearly but a lot of people here seem to miss.
That so many people see the statement that President Obama would not go those other routes and that there would be no magical way to avoid this fight as a criticism of the President is surprising to me.
Baud
@Schlemizel:
I guess I did miss your point, because what you just said strikes me as quite different from your initial comment, if your initial comment wasn’t snark.
Anyway, if I’m reading you correctly this time, I generally agree.
Ohio Mom
Well, I only liked reading all the jokes about the coin idea, I never thought the man on the street would understand the hows and whys of the coin. He’d think it was a huge over-reach of presidential power, on par with Obama naming himself emperor for life, and what blow-back that would cause.
So, continue biting nails.
dr. bloor
If Obama is relying on Congressional Democrats to prevent anything from a clean debt ceiling bill getting to his desk, he’s a bigger gambler than I realized.
At least we don’t have to deal with that silly, silly coin!
jp7505a
The GOP created the situation and only the GOP can resolve it. As long as Obama finds a work-around the GOP will continue to play the same card and the business community/moneymen will sit in the peanut gallery throwing spitballs at Obama. Make the GOP own the issue and force a make or break deadline. The moneymen will lean on the orange man and the tutle to get it fixed. They may not care about the contry or the 99% but they do care about their checking account.
Schlemizel
@Baud:
It was snark at the folks who were expecting magical ponies and then got all over me when I suggested they were not coming.
If enough Democrats cave and/or we can’t scare a couple of goopers into not being totally insane there is a very good chance something horrible will come out of the debt ceiling fight. At that point the Prez will either accept that deal or allow the nation to swing out over an abyss. Neither of those are good options and we should be calling & writing and trying to get friends and family to understand what is at stake so they do to. We should not be counting on platinum coins to save us.
What any President says he wants and what he can actually deliver are not the same thing. Boy Blunder would have minted the coin because he didn’t care about the future of the country and knew he had the total support of the goopers and also plus rash, easy fixes are his style. Obama won’t because he does care about the future, knows that there are Dems quiet happy to toss him overboard and never really has gone in for flash over substance.
Maude
@Schlemizel:
The Senate Dems sent a letter of support to Obama to do what needs to be done.
The pressure is on the Republicans. They will be blamed if things go horribly wrong.
Jax6655
@General Stuck:
So true. I had hoped a few of the liberal blogs were finally coming around but accepted this morning that, alas, this was not so.
cathyx
This will give the republicans a chance to get the cuts in the safety net they’ve been wanting.
kindness
Why do all these ‘Serious’ people insist we must do everything the hard way because that is what Republican’s want? Why? I don’t get it.
It’s the whole Kevin Drum/Sully bullshit where we must play their game. Why? Why should we have to play Republican’s game? It isn’t principle so what is it?
General Stuck
@cathyx:
It gives them a chance to this time fully and completely self destruct as a viable political party as they have been. They will NOT get at the safety net, but voters may well throw a net over them.
Xenos
Who needs a magic coin when a majority in the senate gives you impeachment-proof guarantee that they will let you take the XIVth amendment option?
This fight is over already. Obama gets to do whatever he wants, the problem is just a matter of controling the poltical fallout.
WaterGirl
This post by BIlmon makes complete sense and is the best thing I’ve seen on the platinum coin anywhere. I first saw it over at Booman, but I know others here have linked it since.
After reading the article I completely agree that President Obama is doing the right thing here.
WaterGirl
@cathyx:
WRONG.
Not gonna happen.
Lojasmo
Good. The wingnut/paultard nattering would be deafening.
Also, Ted and Hellen would be catterwauling about how it should have been a two trillion dollar coin, and Obama sold us out because JoePA, steadfast mentor of young men, wasn’t on the front
Ash Can
I think this is pretty awesome. He’s goIng completly hard-nosed badass on the RepublIcans, just like he should. All he has to do is sit back and watch them make asses of themselves and then cave under the pressure of their MOTU bankrollers. This could turn out to be a lot of fun to watch.
Citizen_X
@c u n d gulag: Heh. Name any Tea Party moron in Congress that you can think of, and it’s all too easy to imagine them pointing the shotgun barrel in their own faces, screaming “DUCK SEASON! FIRE!”
jp7505a
@Citizen_X: They can get shooting lessons from Dick Chaney
Nickws
Good point, anti-coiner mistermix.
So, what does pro-coiner mistermix have to say about all this?
I bet he’s pissed about this.
RaflW
@Emma:
Yes. Please. I do think that is the aim.
That’s how I read this right from the WH
Our job, should we accept it, is to help beat the tom-toms of Republican utter malfeasance and to crap on the heads of the Broderist press.
.
Jay C
@General Stuck:
Really. Let’s leave that sort of nonsense to the Republicans!
The only fly (more like a scorpion, actually, but never mind) in the ointment I can foresee is what I think is the Obama Administration’s Achilles Heel: i.e. its general poor record at setting the terms of the PR perception of its initiatives. Especially the important ones. Especially given the fact that our “mainstream media” are still hopelessly Republican-normative in their coverage of political conflicts (and Obama has been smart to make this into a political, rather than a economic fight).
However “right” the President and the Administration might be, I can still see nothing but a parade of fulminating Republicans trotted out on every “news” show on the networks to blather about the horrors of “debt” and “spending” and pushing their partisan BS unchallenged: either by biased hem-and-haw both-sides-do-it “punditry”, or worse, by no forceful simple message from credible Administration officials.
ericblair
@kindness:
The problem with your question is that there is no “Republicans”; there are the realists and the nihilists and Obama can drive a wedge between them once again. I’m guessing the administration and the congressional Dems are pretty confident that this is going to happen, and Obama is not going to let them off the hook by whipping out a magic coin.
Because that’s what it would be: do the coin and all the goopers can rail against it while they get to avoid the consequences of their ideology. For all the talk about balls and not giving in and selling out and all the rest of the crap, the firebaggers seem to be really quick to wet their pants and hide behind a piece of metal.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Seems as good a time as any for Obama to remain firm. Otherwise his second term is in peril of accomplishing little more than a series of firefights over legislation that in better days passed with little fuss.
And, if he can break the back of the lunatic coalition now then our chances of re-taking the House in 2014 look much, much better.
Maude
@Jay C:
Can I borrow your crystal ball?
RaflW
@MattF:
Exactly. I think the Obama admin sees this as a potential situation like the one that broke Moon Man and the GOP House in 1995/96.
Perhaps, living in MN where the state GOP forced a shutdown and (also due to two stupid amendment fights) they lost both chambers last November, but I think Obama sees this as the chance to finally prove to all the both-sides-do-it asswipes in the Village that no, in fact, only one side will destroy the town to “save it.”
As Emma says, it’s high-stakes. And the Village is very resistant to finding out new things about, well, anything. So we may be headed to a massive melt-down. But I think Obama is a better strategist than he gets credit for. It’s just that his plays pay off more slowly.
RaflW
@cathyx:
Why? What’s the true leverage the GOP has? A number of prominent conservatives and GOPers have as much admitted that they only have the threat, the follow-through would be too severe.
I think Obama is clearly signaling that he’s the one who won’t swerve out of the passing lane. That’s what it will take to break the GOPs magical thinking about the debt limit.
Roger Moore
@dr. bloor:
I don’t think he is, and he doesn’t have to. He has the veto, and as long as he makes it perfectly clear in advance how he’ll use it, he can probably put the blame on the Republicans if he has to veto a debt ceiling bill that includes a bunch of other stuff.
Ted & Hellen
Of course this represents only half of the equation. The OTHER reason we’re going to have this senseless and destructive showdown is because President Obama is weak-willed in his alleged service of the country.
Davis X. Machina
Debt is sin, money is specie, virtue in the ruler makes the rain fall and the ewes lamb, the village is the world, and those people in the next valley don’t know how to make cheese right, or to whom or how to pray.
Bankrupt them all, God will recognize His own. (See, we’re making progress. 700 years ago, we’d have burned them all…)
This is what comes from having a. a majoritarian form of government, b. the Internet, and c. a staggering number of people walking around with heads stuffed full of the economic and social intuitions of a 14th century peasant.
Extremism in the defense of extremism is no vice. And macroeconomics is a branch of moral theology.
Roger Moore
@Schlemizel:
C+ Augustus would never have been in position to need the coin, because his opposition still believed that government can and should do some good for the country. Obama’s opposition seem to be perfectly happy with the idea of blowing up the government, so they’re much harder to deal with.
Heliopause
There will be no showdown if the President keeps his word. There are at least two parties to a showdown. If the President keeps his word then it will be the House GOP standing all by their lonesome at the precipice.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Nickws: Actually, if you reread mistermix’s post, you’ll see that he’s more resigned to the fact that there will be no coin, rather than happy that there is no coin.
Joel
Whomever linked billmon here deserves a cookie, because billmon put the argument against the coin more succintly than I ever could.
Schlemizel
@Roger Moore:
Rhetorical device. Boy Blunder would go for an easy solution that pushed the boundaries, often into really bad places. If he had needed the coin there is no doubt he would have used it despite the end result. Well, one threat, if there was another option that had a worse outcome while still allowing him to do whatever the hell he wanted he would have picked that one.
Obama was never a threat to do anything like that.
Bobby Thomson
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
You mean other than the last time they did?
Seriously, there is no cavalry of ponies. They will default, and the president will accept a shit sandwich to clean things up. The size and presentation of the sandwich is the only thing in doubt.
Schlemizel
@Maude:
I hope you are not counting on the Dems to actually do anything more than send a letter. They have demonstrated too many times over the last 6 years that they won’t stick together and over the last 4 years that they will abandon the President if it is convenient.
Their sending a letter is a lot like the President making a statement about not letting the goopers hold the debt ceiling hostage. Don’t wait till the deal is made, call & write (real letters with a stamp & everything get more attention – email is useless I think) now while they are jockeying for position. Let them know you are paying attention.
It also would help if we were more explicit than “support our President” and demand specifically that they not cave & allow the goopers to gut social security and medicare.
Bobby Thomson
@RaflW:
Face facts. The denouement of this will not be good.
WaterGirl
@Joel: That was me, but I see from your post that I spelled his name wrong even as I was recommending his post. Sorry, Billmon!
Michael2
TPM reports Carney added an extra statement. In it, Carney reiterates:
This raises a significant question. When they say they won’t “tolerate” – what exactly do they expect the recourse to be?? Are we going to send Yosemite Sam into the Capitol to crack some skulls? Are we going to pelt them with marshmallows as they enter and leave?? WTF exactly do they propose we are able to do in response? This is such an idiotic approach. Are we just supposed to sit there while our credit rating implodes until November 2014 when we can vote in some adults??
You get the leaders you vote for, I guess.
Napoleon
If this doesn’t prove to the holdouts that Obama is a complete incompetent when it comes to negotiating nothing will. That halfwit asshole has now spent nearly 4 years negotiating against himself and unilaterally surrendering leverage against his opponents in exchange for nothing in every single negotiation with the Republicans.
He would have been fired from the law firm I work at years ago if he showed that level of spectacular, world class ineptitude as he does as a routine matter in his negotiations as president.
Xenos
@Michael2: What do you think is going to happen?
Obama will let people panic a bit, but won’t even notify the public when the limit is reached. He can sit and let everybody just guess what is going on, and then can say, based on the XIVth amendment, they are treating the debt issuance as authorised. And have been for weeks. Default? What default?
Or, he can declare anticipatory default, and start picking and choosing which bills to pay – no law says he can do this, but no law says he can not.
These are non-justiciable issues. The only recourse for the house is to impeach. And the Senate majority has already told Obama that they have his back, and should do whatever he feels appropriate.
Meanwhile, in the deadlock, sequester is looming and the military-industrial complex lines up with Wall Street and Main Street to put pressure on Boehner. Pretty soon the Hastert rule is broken for the second time in a row and the House GOP is broken.
It will get ugly, but Obama is going to win this coming and going.
becca
The GOP would lurve if O authorized a coin. A vote against raising the ceiling and suffer no consequence from the donors with the bonus of pointless impeachment proceedings!
Lucy/football.
Xenos
And the more that Ted & Helen, Napoleon, and assorted and sundry fools bitch about this the more confident we can be the Obama will handle this well.
Take it to the bank, libtards!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Napoleon: Sorry, I missed something. What was that about his negotiating skills at the end of 2012 where he either got the Republicans to:
1. Vote for a tax increase.
2. Vote for Obama’s tax cut.
In either case, he ended the Hastert rule, split House Republicans, and didn’t give up anything himself.
And you know what’s really funny, conservatives believe he ran all over them his first term, getting the stimulus passed, healthcare through, DADT, sequestration, two liberals on the Supreme Court.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Xenos:
Especially since we’ve already hit it.
Xenos
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I though we had had a couple weeks to go. Even better. Just ignore the House and do as he sees fit so long as they abdicate responsibility. Nothing will piss these people off as much as just ignoring them.
Liberty60
I think this actually increases his political advantage.
The coin would have given the GOP a get-out-of-jail free card, allowing them to behave insanely without repercussions.
It would have also been a political godsend to the Freepers, allowing them to use this as the “Obama is a Tyrant” message from now until forever. And a fair number of moderate voters would have been receptive, since it has the air of a freeky extralegal business about it.
No, we are going to have to confront the crazy caucus directly, and I think its even money if they surrender before, or after, the damage hits.
Emma
@Napoleon: You’ll never be him. Not his brains, his talents, his geekdom. Get over it.
The envy and the hatred of the guy oozes out of you like toad venom.
JasonF
@lawguy: The coin is not a negotiating strategy. As long as it (and it’s Moar Sirius cousin, the 14th Amendment Option) was on the table, it gave the Republicans room to continue to be petulant, confident that Daddy Obama would fix things. By taking it off the table, the President is giving the Republicans less room to breathe — now, they will have to face the consequences of their actions.
TR
@Schlemizel:
No, Obama said he wouldn’t budge — not that he could make the Republicans stop pushing. Big difference.
liberal
@Xenos:
I thought they’d already taken that one off the table, too.
Xenos
@liberal: That is what they said. If they change their minds, what is to stop them? Just go ahead and do it, wait a while, have regularly-scheduled press conference, and answer any questions about it then. Blasé. Whatevs.
Ted & Hellen
@Emma:
Would you say this is similar to the way your fan-girl, groupie idol-worship oozes from you?
Every one of your comments is a sopping wet pair of panties tossed to Barack.
Splitting Image
@WaterGirl:
Thanks for posting the Billmon link. That article is terrific.
Humble Lurker
@Ted & Hellen:
Care to explain this one?
Emma
@Ted & Hellen: Only in the eyes of your inchoate hatred, my dear boy. The rest of the readership, who live in reality, will have noticed that I have often discussed my unhappiness with some of President Obama’s decisions, especially in the security state area. But the likes of you only have two modes: (1)hate the president (2)despise everyone who doesn’t feel as you do.
Sad, really.
mds
@Michael2:
No. We’re supposed to sit there until November 2014 when a combination of inevitably lower voter turnout and massive gerrymandering keeps the GOP in control of the House. And the 2014 Senate map is absolutely terrible for Democrats, too. So the voters are very possibly going to hold Republicans accountable for their debt limit shenanigans by giving them control of both chambers come 2015.
Nevertheless, Dems might as well make sure Repubs get as much of the blame as possible for any trainwrecks, with an eye to 2016.
Mnemosyne
I’ll say it again — the big money that supports Republican candidates was really, really not happy that the tax fight was making the stock market bounce up and down like it was on a pogo stick, which is why the Senate voted for tax increases 89-8.
The big money boys are on the phone with the Republicans again, and they are telling them that they had better fucking get this debt ceiling shit straightened out, or the Republicans running in 2014 aren’t going to get a dime in campaign contributions.
I can’t understand why some people think Obama should save the Republicans from themselves and give them an escape hatch, but these seem to be the same people who think “negotiation” means getting your own way on every item up for negotiation, always.
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
Yup, and what the big conflict is, the pols in congress and in electoral politics for the republicans are telling the money guys it ain’t gonna matter if we can’t get elected playing it safe and sane. And money alone just won’t get it done.
If you don’t want the democrats to slip into permanent majority status with the levers of power, then we will have to break some shit and hopefully pin it on the democrats. But the plutocrats are having none of killing the Golden Goose in the process. Catch 22, republican style.
Ted & Hellen
@Emma:
Hmmm…sounds like the mirror image your YOUR default modes:(1)Love and worship the president (2)despise everyone who doesn’t feel as you do.
Someone has to provide balance to the bots.
Ted & Hellen
Oh, I forgot: Sad, really.
Humble Lurker
@Ted & Hellen:
lawguy
It is interesting to read the comments here. You know it was a negotiating stance/position/whatever. As long as it was out there there was a possibility that it might be done and the republicans had to deal with that possibility when they took their positions. Now it isn’t there. One tool was thrown away without being used.
Yet most of the people here insist that it was the bestest thing that the democrats could do, kind of the Dr. Pangloss theory of the Obama presidency.
Well I certainly hope that I’ve read the recent history of presidential negotiations wrong and that this time by golly, he will stick it to the republicans.
TenguPhule
This will not of course stop Republicans from declaring that Obama will indeed mint the coin and a elaborate mythology of wingnuts develop from the damage done by the “covered up” coin.
General Stuck
@lawguy:
You are full of shit.
xian
@Emma: even sadder, the putz replies with mindlessly symmetry despite the very point you just made.
why talk to bot-like trolls at all?