There's No One To Say, "No!"

Another head-scratcher.

The debt limit is the last semblance of fiscal responsibility for a Congress that has essentially abandoned it. But the effort was only a fig leaf, a pretence at budget control, immediately circumvented by the administration. Just after the debt ceiling increase, the Treasury announced, without consulting Congress, that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would get unlimited funding for the next three years for emergency aid to the housing market, "to assure markets of the government's support."

The translation of bureaucratic prose into ordinary speech is quite simple: the administration does not feel bound by congressional debt limits. It will spend as it sees fit. The next time Congress considers raising the debt ceiling, a few members may wonder aloud what difference the debt ceiling makes when the administration brazenly ignores it.

What's the mechanism to prevent this? There are laws on the books that forbid the government from borrowing money past the debt limit, but enforcement lives within the Executive branch. If there is no enforcement, then there are no laws from a practical point of view. How in the world would anyone be able to make this all stop? Sue the Federal government?