The “debt limit” that Congress has repeatedly raised without conditions (including three times in the Trump administration) is not in the Constitution. It’s a federal law that passed in 1917. The U.S. was fighting World War I at an unknown cost, and the U.S. Treasury Department wanted an approved mechanism in place to borrow money without returning to Congress each time. So Congress passed the Second Liberty Bond Act, creating a “debt limit.”
As long as Congress voted to raise or suspend that debt limit to keep our borrowing levels below it (which it has done 78 times since 1960), we did not have the constitutional crisis we have today. But now that unreasonable Republicans insist on holding the debt limit to impose their Social Darwinist agenda, we have a looming June 1 deadline of economic calamity.
The 14th Amendment says the public debt cannot be questioned. If we do not reach a “debt limit deal” by June 1, Biden can still order the U.S. Treasury to keep paying its bills.
Does this sound far-fetched? Consider that most countries do not even have a debt limit. They presume that if spending is legally authorized, the necessary funds must be made available, either through taxes or borrowing.
Only Denmark has a debt limit among advanced economies, but they set it so high that it never gets breached. Australia introduced a debt limit in 2008 but repealed it in 2013 because it was becoming a political football. (Sound familiar?)
The U.S. debt limit crisis is a fictional crisis that Biden can resolve by invoking Section 4 of the 14th Amendment. As Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe explained in a New York Times op-ed last week:
The president should remind Congress and the nation, “I’m bound by my oath to preserve and protect the Constitution to prevent the country from defaulting on its debts for the first time in our entire history.” Above all, the president should say with clarity, “My duty faithfully to execute the laws extends to all the spending laws Congress has enacted, laws that bind whoever sits in this office — laws that Congress enacted without worrying about the statute capping the amount we can borrow.”
For a president to pick the lesser of two evils when no other option exists is the essence of constitutional leadership, not the action of a tyrant. And there is no doubt that ignoring the debt ceiling until Congress either raises or abolishes it is a lesser evil than leaving those with lawful claims against the Treasury out in the cold.
Even if Biden never uses the 14th Amendment, he must state his intent to do so now rather than wait after we default on June 1 in order to influence any deal he may strike with congressional leaders. Failing to do so puts too much leverage in the hands of Republicans, who may have already gotten more fossil fuel permits as a result.
