Is there any doubt that a Republican president would take advantage of a provision in the U.S. Constitution to help his or her cause? We saw how President George W. Bush took advantage of all kinds of executive privileges–many of them questionable–to push forward his agenda.

President Obama can invoke a section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to forestall a financial crisis:

Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

I’m not a lawyer, but that sounds pretty straightforward. President Obama can invoke this constitutional provision to prevent a default of the nation’s debt, especially if an intransigent Republican congress will offer no other reasonable option. Republicans would howl and demand the Supreme Court take it up, but if the President isn’t keeping Section Four of  the 14th Amendment as a trump card, he is shortchanging the American people.