An Utter Nightmare: Biden Considering Using Novel Legal Theory To Subvert Congress On Debt Limit Fight

As President Joe Biden prepares to meet with House and Senate leaders regarding the ongoing debt ceiling issue, insiders and pundits have offered speculation that Biden and his advisors are considering using the 14th Amendment to subvert Congressional authority negating the debt ceiling by simply declaring it unconstitutional. In short, it is a move that will trigger an immediate constitutional crisis, an utter nightmare.

According to The Washington Examiner, Biden is scheduled to meet with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) Tuesday alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). The debate, frustratingly for many conservatives, doesn't even center around whether the debt ceiling should be raised, but only if an increase should be married to major spending cuts, a proposal that the Democrats wouldn't even discuss in the Senate.

McConnell has stood beside McCarthy in demanding the White House and Schumer accept the spending cuts, answered by Biden vocally refusing to negotiate, insisting upon a 'clean' debt ceiling increase. The Tuesday negotiations seem to indicate a possible change in that position.

However, dating back to the Obama administration, Democrats have floated the novel legal theory that by declaring the debt ceiling unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, Biden could override Congress and keep the government open for business by issuing debt independent of the legislature. Going into this meeting, speculation is rife that this is Biden's ace-in-the-hole.

The 14th Amendment states in part, "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."

Troublingly, Biden has seemed loath to take the option off the table, as noted by Redstate's Bonchie.

Were Biden to attempt this route, one which even his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told ABC's George Stephanopoulos "would be a constitutional crisis," the situation could turn from tense to chaotic almost overnight. Nonetheless, she refused to rule it out.
 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen refuses three times to rule out Biden unilaterally "invoking the 14th Amendment" on the debt limit pic.twitter.com/rwP5shMWba

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 7, 2023

Yellen told the host, "All I want to say is that it’s Congress’ job to do this. If they fail to do it, we will have an economic and financial catastrophe that will be of our own making, and there is no action that President Biden and the U.S. Treasury can take to prevent that catastrophe,” adding later, “I don’t want to consider emergency options.”
 
Biden seems to have support for this notion on the Hill as well. Appearing on 'Inside with Jen Psaki' on MSNBC, Democrat Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD) implied that such a move would be justified. Asked by Psaki if Biden "has the authority to invoke the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling on its own?" Raskin said, "I think he has that authority under these circumstances, absolutely. The Congress has put him in a constitutionally untenable position."
 

.@jrpsaki Do you think President Biden has the authority to invoke the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling on its own? @RepRaskin: "I think he has that authority under these circumstances, absolutely. The Congress has put him in a constitutionally untenable position." pic.twitter.com/UXxxBeMZve

— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) May 7, 2023

David Kamin, a former deputy director of the White House National Economic Council for Biden told The Washington Post, "You have to worry about the interest rates, the market reaction, the effect on financial markets that rely on Treasury. There’s no way to avoid potentially significant economic damage given the debate that would ensue." 

Such action would be immediately taken to court according to WaPo,
 

"No matter what the merits of the debate are, Biden officials fear that investors would demand much higher interest rates to buy government debt that the courts could throw out, since prospects for repayment would be unclear. That could lead federal borrowing costs to spike, as well as drive up rates for other loans, and it could still lead to the same broader panic in financial markets that it is intended to avoid, administration officials fear."

Furthermore, a majority of the American people seem to favor a government shutdown rather than allowing more spending, this would likely be exacerbated by the severe economic damage that Biden taking the 14th Amendment route could inflict.

According to Rasmussen, in a January poll, 56% of likely U.S. voters "would rather have a partial government shutdown until Congress can agree to either cut spending or keep it the same." Only 34% disagreed.

On the heels of the third major bank failure of 2023, in fact, the second, third, and fourth largest failures in U.S. history, according to bankrate, a sovereign debt crisis could prove cataclysmic on a national and even global macroeconomic scale. Such an event would be unthinkable even in a robust economy not still reeling two years after a deliberate global economic shutdown.

In the weakened and precarious state of the U.S. and global economy, Democrat hubris and unwillingness to submit to House Republicans' 'power of the purse,' could trigger nothing short of financial armageddon.

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