As the debate over the debt ceiling rages on, some congressional Democrats have staked out an unprecedented and dangerous position on presidential power. They have encouraged President Joe Biden, if ongoing negotiations with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy fail, to invoke the little-known public debt clause (section four of the 14th Amendment) and thrust aside the federal law that establishes a ceiling on how much the government may borrow.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., is one such Democrat extremist. He recently tweeted: “This is the whole reason why the 14th Amendment exists, and we need to be prepared to use it. We cannot let these reckless Republicans hold the economy hostage.”
The situation is undoubtedly urgent because if the negotiations between the White House and Congress do not produce a compromise, the federal government risks defaulting on its debt payments — an outcome that would have devastating consequences for the national and global economy, and that would injure the public credit of the United States.
Setting aside the complete absurdity of Fetterman’s claim that “the whole reason why the 14th Amendment exists” was to give the president the power to disregard valid legal limits on the national debt (the main purpose of the amendment was to provide basic civil rights to Americans of every skin color), the good senator is grotesquely wrong.
The public debt clause makes no reference to the president, either explicitly or implicitly. There is no “emergency” presidential authority enabling Biden to spend or borrow money hidden
