Ex-Treasury Official: Obama Could Use Debt Crisis to Seize Total Power

President could declare national emergency, pass executive order

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
October 10, 2013

Image: Barack Obama.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts warns that President Barack Obama could use the debt ceiling crisis to seize total power, by declaring a national emergency and passing an executive order in the name of preventing an economic collapse.

With the government still in shut down over the failure to pass a spending bill, the U.S. faces an October 17 deadline to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, which currently stands at almost $17 trillion dollars.

According to Roberts, there is a chance that Obama could exploit the disastrous consequences of a default to push for dictatorial control.

Roberts says that one of two scenarios will happen if Congress fails to make a temporary deal with the White House to raise the debt ceiling.

Either the Federal Reserve would simply lend the Treasury the money, similar to how they propped up foreign banks with at least $16 trillion in bailout funds, or Obama would “declare a ‘national catastrophe’ and simply assume the leadership of the government.”

“This would mean that the President, on his own authority, could raise the debt ceiling. So, either of those two events would happen if it looked like no deal was forthcoming from the Congress. It could be that President Obama, or others in the Executive Branch, are planning to use this crisis to invoke that Executive Order,” Roberts told KingWorldNews.

This would essentially render the US Congress a ceremonial body with no power and turn Obama into a Caesar-like figure.

“Generally when democratically regimes fail you end up with a Caesar, and a shutdown is of course the epitome of a democratic failure. So this would give President Obama all of the justification for exercising the Executive Order so that the President can rule independently of Congress and the courts,” said Roberts.

Despite his warning, Roberts still thinks that lawmakers are likely to cut a short term deal to raise the debt ceiling, if only to preserve the power of Congress.

“Congress would not want a presidential directive to be implemented that subordinates their position and possibly eliminates their meaningful participation in governance,” writes Roberts.

House Republican leaders will meet the President later today in order to thrash out a short term agreement after Obama said he was open to the idea of a temporary deal.