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When Congress meets later this week to act on the debt ceiling agreement negotiated by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, they will have three options.
The first option is to adopt the agreement. The agreement will undo some of what many members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, worked hard to achieve, and will tie their hands into the future. No matter what the details of the agreement turn out to be, this is bad policymaking.
The second option is to reject the agreement. This would put the ball back in Biden’s court. But he might be getting ready to clobber it.
The president’s constitutional duty is to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The debt ceiling law puts Biden into a bind. Either he keeps meeting the financial obligations already determined by laws passed by Congress, or he obeys the debt ceiling law.
While McCarthy’s staff is working on the details of the debt ceiling circumvention act, Biden’s staff could be preparing a list of the laws Biden will break if he stops paying the bills.
Then, if Congress rejects the agreement, Biden could disclose the list, and announce he is instructing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to disregard the debt ceiling and meet all legal obligations.
He could. He could spare the country the disruption of economic chaos while risking impeachment for breaking only one law.
The third option is the best. Congress could repeal the debt ceiling law.
David Henry
Lamoine
