Cite as: 518 U. S. 839 (1996)
Breyer, J., concurring
bility" language in these unusual cases to disable future courts from inferring, from language and circumstance under ordinary contract principles, a more narrow promise in more typical cases—say, a promise not to abrogate, or to restrict severely through legislation and without compensation, the very right that a sovereign explicitly granted by contract (e. g., the right to drill for oil, or to use the riverbed).
The Government attempts to answer this objection to its reading of the "unmistakability" language by arguing that any award of "substantial damages" against the government for breach of contract through a change in the law "unquestionably carries the danger that needed future regulatory action will be deterred," and thus amounts to an infringement on sovereignty requiring an "unmistakable" promise. Brief for Petitioner 21. But this rationale has no logical stopping point. See, e. g., United States Trust Co. of N. Y. v. New Jersey, 431 U. S. 1, 24 (1977) ("Any financial obligation could be regarded in theory as a relinquishment of the State's spending power, since money spent to repay debts is not available for other purposes. . . . Notwithstanding these effects, the Court has regularly held that the States are bound by their debt contracts"). It is difficult to see how the Court could, in a principled fashion, apply the Government's rule in this case without also making it applicable to the ordinary contract case (like the hypothetical sale of oil) which, for the reasons explained above, are properly governed by ordinary principles of contract law. To draw the line—i. e., to apply a more stringent rule of contract interpretation—based only on the amount of money at stake, and therefore (in the Government's terms) the degree to which future exercises of sovereign authority may be deterred, seems unsatisfactory. As the Government acknowledges, see Brief for United States 41, n. 34, this Court has previously rejected the argument that Congress has "the power to repudiate its own debts, which constitute 'property' to the lender, simply in order to save money." Bowen, supra, at
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