Obama says Constitution not a way to avoid Congress in debt limit debate
UPDATED 12:39 p.m. ET
President Obama on Friday shot down suggestions that he could raise the legal borrowing limit without Congress under a provision of the U.S. Constitution that says the validity of the public debt shall not be questioned.
"I have talked to my lawyers. They are not persuaded that that is a winning argument. So, the challenge for me is to make sure that we do not default, but to do so in a way that is as balanced as possible and gets us at least a down payment on solving this problem," Mr. Obama said in response to a question about the Constitutional argument at a townhall at the University of Maryland.
Former President Bill Clinton earlier this week suggested he would ignore the House Republicans if had to and raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling on his own and "force the courts to stop" him.
"I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy," Clinton said in an interview with The National Memo columnist Joe Conason.
Mr. Obama had dodged the issue at a Twitter townhall event at the White House July 6.
Mr. Obama said he would like to able to avoid the House Republicans in the ongoing debate about government spending, but "that is not how our Democracy works."
"Americans have made a decision about divided government," Mr. Obama said.
Most economists, including Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, and the Obama administration have warned of economic calamity if the U.S. borrowing limit is not raised by August 2.
Lawmakers from both parties want to use the threat of that deadline to come to a larger agreement that would reduce the deficit going forward.
Mr. Obama and House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday appeared close to a deal, according to congressional sources who spoke to CBS News, to cut the deficit over time by $3 trillion, though both sides denied they are close to a deal.
Prior to Obama's comments, the Senate rejected a plan from House Republicans to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for deep spending cuts and a change to the U.S. Constitution that would required a balanced budget going forward.