Debt-ceiling deal gives feds a blank check until February - Wealth Managers

Even more ominously, "the president now has the ability to unilaterally get rid of the debt-ceiling limit"

Shortly after Congress approved a deal to reopen the government into January 2014 and extend the debt ceiling until February, the national debt blasted through $17 trillion.
According to The Economic Collapse blog, the U.S. racked up $1 trillion in debt in the past 12 months: "On Sept. 30, 2012, the U.S. national debt was sitting at $16,066,241,407,385.89. Today, it is up to $17,075,590,107,963.57. ... For a long time the national debt was stuck at just less than $16.7 trillion because of the debt ceiling fight, but now that the debt ceiling crisis has been delayed for a few months the national debt is soaring once again. In fact, just one day after the deal in Congress was reached, the U.S. national debt rose by an astounding $328 billion. In the blink of an eye we shattered the $17 trillion mark with no end in sight. We are stealing about $100,000,000 from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day. This goes on 24 hours a day, month after month, year after year without any interruption."

Frighteningly, the deal set no dollar cap on the debt ceiling -- just a temporal date. Now the federal government has no limit on its spending though February. Be very afraid.

As The Washington Times reported Oct. 18: "Usually Congress sets a borrowing limit, or debt ceiling, that caps the total amount the government can be in the red. But under the terms of this week's deal, Congress set a deadline instead of a dollar cap. That means debt can rise as much as Mr.Obama and Congress want it to, until the Feb. 7 deadline. Judging by the rate of increase over the past five months, that could end up meaning Congress just granted Mr. Obama a debt increase of $700 billion or more."

In addition to expanding the debt, the deal also apparently expands the executive branch's power over the debt ceiling by taking away Congress' checkmating ability.

Ex-Congressman Ron Paul, R-Texas, warned: "Congress surrendered more power to the president in this bill. Instead of setting a new debt ceiling, it simply 'suspended' the debt ceiling until February. This gives the administration a blank check to run up as much debt as it pleases from now until Feb. 7. Congress can 'disapprove' the debt-ceiling suspension, but only if it passes a resolution of disapproval by a two-thirds majority. How long before Congress totally abdicates its constitutional authority over spending by allowing the Treasury permanent and unlimited authority to borrow money without seeking Congressional approval?" 

And Dave Kranzler of The Golden Truth blog confirmed in aSeeking Alpha article: "In order for Congress to override the president's veto, 2/3's of both Houses of Congress would have to approve of the rejection of the president's veto. There's no way both the Senate and the House would be capable of doing this. In other words, the president now has the ability to unilaterally get rid of the debt-ceiling limit. QE to infinity.

"Everyone follow that? In effect, and for all practical intents and purposes, although in theory it's not entirely the case, the U.S. government no longer has a debt-ceiling limit. It was only a matter of time before everything came to this. And now it will require a lot more Federal Reserve money printing in order to fund the enormous issuance of Treasury debt that is coming our way. There's no way the Chinese and our other big foreign financiers will ever agree to invest money in the bonds of a country that has absolutely no constraints on debt issuance. This is why the U.S. dollar has been literally falling off of a cliff since early July." 

Now is the time to hedge against this exploding debt and the falling dollar with a diversified portfolio that includes inflation-hedging real assets like gold and silver bullion and rare coins

More information can be found online at http://www.goldbullionadvisors.com