Tip Sheets
Federal budget ‘its own debt ceiling,’ Biden should ignore calls for negotiation
February 1, 2023
Media Contact
Damien Sharp
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are scheduled to meet today at the White House in an effort to reach a resolution on the nation’s debt ceiling. The Treasury Department has continued to take extraordinary measures to pay the nation’s debt after the U.S. reached its debt limit on Jan. 19.
Robert Hockett, professor of law and public finance at Cornell Law School, says that President Biden should ignore calls for negotiation and continue to govern responsibly without Republican support.
Robert Hockett
Professor of Law
“The federal budget is duly enacted law, and as such is its own debt ceiling. No federal court would hold that the obsolete 1917 Liberty Bond Act regime, superseded in 1974 and source of the false ‘debt ceiling,’ trumps the last-passed federal budget.
“President Biden accordingly should simply ignore the latest gang of Republican fiscal terrorists and proceed to govern responsibly without them until they are educated in court, should they sue.”
