May 9, 2023

Could Joe Biden Use the 14th Amendment to Solve the Debt Ceiling?

Time - As the political brinkmanship over the debt limit continues, Biden Administration officials are being asked whether they’d invoke a controversial legal theory under the 14th Amendment that may allow the President to bypass Congress and raise the nation’s debt limit without Republican approval. The theory, which previous administrations had ruled out, builds on Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to argue that it would be unconstitutional for the U.S. to fail to make payments even if the debt limit isn’t raised, effectively challenging the debt limit on legal grounds. But doing so for the first time in U.S. history could have serious ramifications for the economy and elicit a host of legal challenges that could take months to sort out, leaving the country in a fiscal crisis in the meantime.

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