https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/14th-amendment-us-debt-ceiling-debate/

How the 14th Amendment factors into the debt ceiling debate

philadelphia

MAY 21, 2023

As negotiations over addressing the US debt ceiling continue and the threat of default draws closer, President Joe Biden has resurfaced the controversial idea of using the 14th Amendment as a way to lift the borrowing cap without Congress.

Biden has said he doesn't consider the move an imminent solution, but several liberal lawmakers in both chambers are pushing him to invoke the amendment rather than give in to Republican demands to cut spending and tighten work requirements, among others. Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are among 11 senators who are urging the president to take advantage of the amendment to avoid the US defaulting on its debt.

Section 4 of the 14th Amendment

How could a 145-year-old change to the US Constitution that gave citizenship to former slaves serve as a path out of the debt ceiling drama? Government officials and legal authorities are divided over whether it does.

Some experts, including Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School, point to Section 4 of the amendment as the basis of their argument that the president has the authority to order the nation's debts be paid regardless of the debt limit Congress put in place more than 100 years ago.

"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," reads the section, which refers to the debt incurred by the Union to fight the Civil War.

As negotiations over addressing the US debt ceiling continue and the threat of default draws closer, President Joe Biden has resurfaced the controversial idea of using the 14th Amendment as a way to lift the borrowing cap without Congress.

Biden has said he doesn't consider the move an imminent solution, but several liberal lawmakers in both chambers are pushing him to invoke the amendment rather than give in to Republican demands to cut spending and tighten work requirements, among others. Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are among 11 senators who are urging the president to take advantage of the amendment to avoid the US defaulting on its debt.

Section 4 of the 14th Amendment

How could a 145-year-old change to the US Constitution that gave citizenship to former slaves serve as a path out of the debt ceiling drama? Government officials and legal authorities are divided over whether it does.

Some experts, including Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School, point to Section 4 of the amendment as the basis of their argument that the president has the authority to order the nation's debts be paid regardless of the debt limit Congress put in place more than 100 years ago.

"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," reads the section, which refers to the debt incurred by the Union to fight the Civil War.