Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr has joined 18 other states in sending a letter to President Biden urging that he follow the law by not expanding his executive powers to raise the debt ceiling without congressional approval.
The letter comes in response to Biden claiming that the executive branch has the power to raise or ignore the debt ceiling under the 14th amendment.
“President Biden does not have the authority to raise the debt ceiling without congressional approval, and any assertion otherwise is dangerous and blatantly false,” said Carr. “Rather than recklessly ignoring the established laws of this country to win political points, the President should instead focus on negotiating in good faith with Congress on a realistic solution and address the record-high inflation that is harming families across this nation.”
The letter explains how the “Constitution very deliberately invests the power of the purse in Congress. That power includes the authority to tax, the authority to spend, and, explicitly, the authority to borrow money on the credit of the United States.”
“As an expression of this enumerated power, Congress has, by statute, allowed the executive branch to issue bonds and authorize debt up to a specified ceiling. Far from an intrusion on executive authority, this function has always been, and remains, an exercise of legislative power,” the letter adds.
The letter then addresses Biden’s 14th amendment claims, explaining how that amendment “confers no new authority with respect to those powers but instead states that ‘the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, . . . shall not be questioned.’ The phrase ‘authorized by law’ clearly refers back to Congress’s authority to borrow. No plausible reading of this passage infringes on the exclusive authority to borrow conferred to Congress by Article I.”
Carr was joined by attorney generals from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
