The Debt Ceiling Disasters: How the Republicans Created an Unnecessary Constitutional Crisis and How the Democrats Can Fight Back

Abstract

Congressional Republicans, starting in 2011, embarked upon an unprecedented strategy of budgetary brinkmanship, threatening not to increase the statutory debt ceiling by the amount necessary to accommodate their own taxing and spending decisions. Starting from the very beginning, Neil H. Buchanan provided legal and economic analysis of the political debate and the potential economic catastrophe that could ensue, demonstrating that the debt ceiling statute is unconstitutional and that the president is required to treat the debt ceiling as a dead letter. This book is a collection of Buchanan's essays, written contemporaneously, analyzing the political chaos of the first three debt ceiling crises that Republicans created and that the country narrowly survived.