Republicans are once again playing stupid, dangerous games with America’s sovereign credit

 Read: https://newrepublic.com/article/163067/republicans-debt-ceiling-blackmail-credit-default

'In recent years, a number of idiotic right-wingers have actually endorsed defaulting on the debt. Some argue that the people who lent money to the federal government were fools who deserve nothing. Others contend that it will force a massive slashing of federal spending and that the budget will be balanced overnight—bills could only be paid as tax revenue flows into the Treasury (which it does on a very irregular basis). They don’t care that the Treasury lacks the legal authority to decide who gets paid and who doesn’t or that there’s no rational way for it to do so if it had such authority.'

I will only comment that default is inevitable, although I don't see this happening for at least another 20 years.  It would be better to try to extend this date through cutting spending.  The author of the above piece assumes that the government will never default unless done voluntarily.  A partial default would actually be a good thing, and thinking about these issues is a wise move, not a "stupid, dangerous game".

=====================

Does the President have inherent authority under the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit?

When Republicans came very, very close to defaulting on the debt 10 years ago, a number of legal scholars argued that the Fourteenth Amendment and the president’s inherent constitutional authority could be used by President Obama to simply ignore the debt limit and sell whatever bonds were necessary to finance the spending Congress had already authorized. These included Garret Epps of the University of Baltimore, Michael Abramowicz of George Washington University, Eric Posner of the University of Chicago and Adrian Vermeule of Harvard, Neil Buchanan of the University of Florida and Michael Dorf of Cornell, Jacob Charles of Duke University, and numerous others. Former President Bill Clinton agreed.

https://newrepublic.com/article/163067/republicans-debt-ceiling-blackmail-credit-default

I think he probably does but this is not a good thing.  It would be the equivalent of a king raising taxes without the consent of Parliament.