Opinion: 1 thing MSU professor wants you to know about the debt ceiling fight

Charles Ballard
·4 min read
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In early January, a tiny minority of the U.S. House of Representatives held the entire House hostage for four days. Kevin McCarthy got to be Speaker of the House, but the hostage takers wrung lots of concessions from him. The next hostage drama involves the so-called “debt ceiling."

If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, the federal government would eventually default on its debt payments. That would be catastrophic for the economy.

The debt ceiling has been raised dozens of times over the years, usually without much fuss. However, in 2011 and 2013, congressional Republicans used the debt ceiling to create a crisis, which they used to extract concessions from the Obama Administration. We avoided default, but the crisis rattled financial markets, forcing the U.S. to pay billions of dollars in additional interest to skittish investors.

The Biden Administration is preparing for a major hostage drama over the debt ceiling. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says that her team is taking “extraordinary measures” to stave off default for as long as possible.

However, all of this drama is unnecessary, because the debt ceiling is unconstitutional (despite the fact that Congresses and presidents of both parties have played the debt-ceiling game for decades).

The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War. Section 4 of the Amendment clarifies that the federal government’s debts are to be honored, while the debts of the Confederate States of America are not. The first sentence of Section 4 states that "[t]he validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment for pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

If we cut that sentence down to its essentials, it says "The public debt of the United States shall not be questioned."

The language could not be clearer. In the United States of America, we pay our debts. There is no question of not making our debt payments, because our debt “shall not be questioned.” Thus, if we follow the Constitution, fulfilling our financial obligations cannot be held hostage.

When President Joe Biden took the oath of office in 2021, he swore to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” When the members of this Congress (including the would-be hostage takers) took their oath, they swore to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Thus, these officials are bound by duty and honor to defend the Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment.

In a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Jan. 13, 2023, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen implored Congress to raise the debt ceiling of $31.4 trillion: “Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability.”
In a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Jan. 13, 2023, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen implored Congress to raise the debt ceiling of $31.4 trillion: “Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability.”

Biden should state clearly that, since it is unconstitutional, the debt ceiling is null and void, and that his administration will not enforce it. (In so doing, he would have to admit that the Obama Administration, in which Biden served as vice president, made a big mistake by negotiating with the hostage takers in 2011 and 2013.)

In playing the debt-ceiling game, presidents and Congresses have ignored the Fourteenth Amendment. This may seem surprising, but it isn’t the first time it has happened. Section 1 of the Amendment guarantees “equal protection of the laws” to all Americans, but Supreme Court decisions often show that many justices think that “equal” somehow means “highly unequal.” Section 2 of the Amendment says that if a state were to deny some of its citizens the right to vote, its number of representatives in Congress would be reduced proportionally. Southern states systematically denied the right to vote to African Americans for nearly a century, but their representation was never reduced.

But just because we have ignored the Constitution a great deal in the past, it does not follow that we should continue to ignore it now. Let’s uphold the Constitution by ditching the debt-ceiling circus. Then, members of Congress and the president must roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of bringing greater fiscal responsibility to the federal budget.

It can be done. Most federal budgets of the last half century have run irresponsibly large deficits, but Congress and President Bill Clinton did manage to balance the federal budget for four years running, beginning in the late 1990s. In balancing the budget, they showed political courage and the ability to compromise. Neither of those qualities is plentiful in Washington D.C. these days. But our elected representatives owe us no less than to do their jobs, by tackling our deficit-ridden budget without gimmicks or manufactured crises.

Charles L. Ballard, Ph.D., is a professor of economics emeritus at Michigan State University. Contact the Free Press opinion page: letters@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Opinion: Congress' debt ceiling debate could be avoided