Wild idea, but wild times cause for wild ideas, maybe.....
Constitutional out:
The Fed holds vast amounts of US government bonds.
The Fed can sell these back to the Treasury --- say $ trillion for $ 1.
The Government can then resell the bonds. First to the Fed, and then when the market stabilizes, on the market.
No debt increase, plenty of short term cash, and no constitutional crisis.
It would seem to me that it is only inflationary, the QE2 was...this would be the QE3. In any case an inflationary country is a much better credit risk than a banana republic in default.
There will be questions about the Fed's authority to do this, but the Fed is such an arcane, elitest institution that this is maybe not the greatest problem....even the Roberts court could find it difficult to insert itself.....
I may be totally off base here, but it seemed like an interesting idea......