Crisis of Authority
by digby
I guess the administration was getting fearful that someone might think they had the power to do anything but cut as much spending as humanly possible:
The General Counsel of the Treasury Department has just sent out an email to the New York Times which seems to say definitively that Secretary Geithner believes that only Congress can raise the debt limit and has full authority to force the country into default. In other words, nothing President Obama or the Treasury can do about it.
I'm fairly sure they didn't want those pesky congressional Democrats getting it into their heads that doing something silly like objecting to "entitlement" cuts might not result in Armageddon. Weakened the game plan substantially.
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