President Joe Biden
is set to meet with congressional leaders including
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
and Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
on Tuesday, but donât expect any negotiation over raising the federal governmentâs borrowing limit, which
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
said may be reached on June 1.
Despite
polling
showing that an overwhelming majority of voters (74%) believe Biden should negotiate and compromise with Republicans, as President Donald Trump did with Democrats twice, Biden is demanding a âcleanâ debt limit hike before any substantive problems are addressed.
CALIFORNIA’S DELUSIONAL GOVERNOR
He is also edging toward something dangerous and illegal that no president has done before. Reports indicate that senior White House officials claim to believe that Section 4 of the 14th Amendment grants Biden legal authority to order Yellen to issue more debt in the name of the public without authorization from Congress.
Their wholly bogus theory goes like this: When Congress last authorized the Treasury Department to borrow money in December 2021, it set a $31.4 trillion upper limit. Since then, Congress has set spending and taxation levels that differ in an amount greater than that borrowing limit. These laws conflict, the theory goes, so Biden will have no choice but to pick and choose which laws to enforce and which to ignore. Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which says the “validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law ⦠shall not be questioned,â the argument goes, then obliges him to ignore the debt limit and meet all the spending priorities Congress authorized.
âThe right question,â Obama administration adviser Laurence Tribe
writes
, âis whether Congress â after passing the spending bills that created these debts in the first place â can invoke an arbitrary dollar limit to force the president and his administration to do its bidding.â
The 81-year-old Tribe casuistically ignores where the presidentâs borrowing power comes from. Nothing in Article II of the Constitution gives any president the power to borrow a single cent. Article I of the Constitution vests âall legislative powersâ in the âCongress of the United States,â including the power âto lay and collect taxesâ and âto borrow money on the credit of the United States.â
Tribe reverses the truth of the matter. Congress, in setting the debt limit, is granting the president the power to borrow up to that level. It is not limiting a power he inherently enjoys. Biden has no more authority to borrow beyond what Congress stipulates than he has to tax beyond what Congress decides. Nothing in the 14th Amendment grants the president new powers to raise taxes or borrow money.
The 14th Amendment does obligate Biden to do everything he can to honor U.S. debts. He should direct all tax revenues to paying debt interest and principal necessary to meet Treasury obligations. If he is still short on cash after that, he can start to make up the difference by canceling his illegal student debt amnesty plan.
After that, he needs to come to Congress with a willingness to negotiate on raising the Treasury Departmentâs borrowing limit. But, as noted, that does not appear to be the route he wishes to take.
This
Sunday
, Yellen was given four opportunities, in rapid succession, to rule out invoking the 14th Amendment as a legal authority to issue more debt, and she declined each time. After meeting with McCarthy, Biden plans to campaign briefly against House Republicans who voted to raise the debt limit in conjunction with federal permitting reforms before he jets off to Asia for a week.
That would give Biden just seven days to negotiate a deal with McCarthy. To get there, he has to swallow his pride and negotiate. Absent negotiations, we will be in unprecedented territory. Biden will either have to start prioritizing federal payments or Yellen will have to start selling illegal Biden bonds. We recommend you donât risk buying any.
