President Joe Biden on Tuesday said he was “considering” the use of the 14th Amendment to circumvent the debt ceiling standoff he currently finds himself in with House Republicans.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Biden referenced legal scholar Laurence Tribe’s recent editorial in The New York Times.
He backed the theory, which claims the president can unilaterally raise the limit under certain circumstances.
“I have been considering the 14th Amendment, and the man I have enormous respect for, Larry Tribe … thinks that it would be legitimate,” Biden said, citing the article. “But the problem is it would have to be litigated. And in the meantime, without an extension, it would still end up in the same place.”
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According to Tribe, the theory is that Section 4 of the 14th Amendment precludes the “validity” of the public debt from being questioned.
Tribe argues that Congress set the debt up to fail when it first established a debt ceiling in 1917 because the limit would force the U.S. to stop borrowing to honor its debts if it ever was reached.
“The theory builds on Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to argue that Congress, without realizing it, set itself on a path that would violate the Constitution when, in 1917, it capped the size of the federal debt. Over the years, Congress has raised the debt ceiling scores of times, most recently two years ago, when it set the cap at $31.4 trillion. We hit that amount on Jan. 19 and are being told that the “extraordinary measures” Treasury has available to get around it are about to run out. When that happens, all hell will break loose,” Tribe wrote in the Times.
The 14th Amendment reads, “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.”
But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy shrugged off the idea outside the Capitol on Tuesday.
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“Really think about this,” McCarthy said. “If you’re the leader … and you’re going to go to the 14th amendment to look at something like that — I would think you’re kind of a failure of working with people across sides of the aisle or working with your own party to get something done.”
Some Biden admin officials have been reluctant to embrace the idea, pointing to the potential legal and economic consequences.
“There is no way to protect our financial system and our economy other than Congress doing its job and raising the debt ceiling and enabling us to pay our bills,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday on ABC. “And we should not get to the point where we need to consider whether the president can go on issuing debt. This would be a constitutional crisis.”
The Republican-controlled House has proposed its Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 to solve the debt crisis. Alternatively, the Democratic-led Senate released an economic report condemning the proposal.
Biden met with congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday, though no progress was made toward avoiding default.
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