Prominent legal scholars, along with many bloggers with no legal training whatsoever, recently have been floating the possibility that if a deal isn't struck to raise the federal debt ceiling before Treasury's August 2 deadline, then the Obama administration should use a clause in the 14th Amendment to declare the debt ceiling itself unconstitutional and continue to issue debt as usual. An interesting idea! But the Obama administration now appears to have taken this "constitutional option" off the table.