OK, so here's the play by play: Boehner creates a House budget plan to get by a strong Tea Party defense. The plan proves too weak; the CBO downgrades it and the Tea Party Republicans refuse to play. Reid, seeing his opportunity for an offensive push, creates a Senate plan that, through some gimmicky arrangement, blows Boehner's plan out of the stadium as far as savings. House Republicans retreat to revamp their budget plan, increasing spending cuts to make sure the Tea Party plays along, and resubmit to the CBO. The CBO gives it the thumbs up, and a new vote will be held for it today. There's a lot of stumping and flag-waving in the Republican section of the House (one freshman representative from Pennsylvanian even chanted, "Let's kick the sh*t out of em'", though what that comment pertained to, no one is sure). Is it any wonder that House Democrats, watching the tap-dance that is the House Republican leadership, are getting nervous? Perhaps that's why yesterday, amid all of the posturing and podium-pounding, House Democrats pleaded with Obama to use the 14th amendment as a last-ditch effort to avoid a U.S. default.

     The 14th amendment to the Constitution states, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." A provision that Senate Democrats have batted around since early June, it essentially states that since the debt of the U.S. can not be questioned, then the debt ceiling itself is unconstitutional. The debt ceiling, or the borrowing limit for U.S. debt (think of it like a credit limit on a credit card) has been criticized before. Some believe that it is unconstitutional, and that the U.S. should be able to borrow as much as it needs in emergencies since checks and balances will ultimately stabilize the economy. Others equate a higher ceiling with a greater potential for wasteful government spending (despite astronomical cuts in proposed government spending for the next ten years by both sides of the aisle). The president, then, would allegedly have the power to do with the debt ceiling what he pleases in order to prevent the U.S. default. Senator Mitch McConnell got behind this plan earlier this month as well when no consensus in the House could be reached and Republicans were looking for a way to foist the political fallout on to the President.

     Democrats in the House, however, seem to be looking at it as a way to both circumvent the circus sideshow playing out on the Republican side of the House floor, as well as to prevent an increasingly likely U.S. default. To add gravitas to their plea, they announced yesterday at the corner of Constitution Avenue and 14th Street around 1 p.m. yesterday to a rapt group of reporters and bystanders. They assured Obama that his caucus would be behind him in exerting his 14th amendment power over the debt ceiling, and would almost assuredly get the Senate Democrats to play along, as reported by Huffington Post yesterday.

     In related news, the entire Senate Democratic caucus has signed a letter refusing to vote for Boehner's budget plan should it pass the House of Representatives. On a surface level this may sound like simple partisan posturing, but a closer look at Boehner's revised plan illustrates why. The House plan would raise the debt ceiling by only $900 billion, which in national debt numbers is only enough to cover the next several months. In addition the plan makes about $22 billion in cuts just in the fiscal year of 2012. Even as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell praises Boehner's plan as, "the only one that will work.", all 53 Democrats in the Senate, a majority, have vowed not to vote for it. According to The Hill, the Democratic Senators wrote to John Boehner, “A short-term extension like the one in your bill would put America at risk, along with every family and business in it...Your approach would force us once again to face the threat of default in five or six short months."

     Speaker Boehner's office replied, acknowledging that the plan was, "far from perfect," but that it would deny Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling, a move they call a $2.4 trillion blank check that would allow him to continue his "spending binge". Of course, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was pimping that alternative just a couple of weeks ago.