Calling on Biden to bypass Congress is asking him to to violate one of the foundational provisions of Article I. Section 8 makes clear that the power "to borrow Money on the credit of the United States" belongs to Congress.
This is absolutely incorrect. The debt ceiling is also about existing debt because servicing that debt is one of the government's expenditures.
Specifically:
> By hitting the limit and failing to pay interest payments to bondholders, the United States would be in default, lowering its credit rating and increasing the cost of its debt.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/debt-ceiling.asp
And doing so would violate the 14th amendment which states that "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."
In short, in past years Congress authorized the government to spend, and in doing so drove the issuance of government bonds. By failing to increase the debt ceiling now, Congress is effectively stopping the government from paying interest on the debt previously issued to pay for those past expenditures they authorized. In effect, they ran up the credit card and now they're stopping the executive from paying the bill.
Moreover, the executive's ability to independently trim spending absolutely has limits, and I've seen no credible claims that the executive can service debt costs "indefinitely":
https://www.crfb.org/papers/qa-everything-you-should-know-ab...
> So-called “prioritization” of payments, or making sure certain obligations among the more than 80 million that get paid per month are paid before others – such as servicing debts to bondholders before making other payments in order to avoid technical default – has been criticized as unrealistic by Treasury officials and economists.
With respect to prioritization, I'm sure Treasury officials don't want to be put in that position, but if we end up hitting the debt ceiling they will need to make it work.
[0] - https://fiscal.treasury.gov/reports-statements/financial-rep...
[1] - https://fiscal.treasury.gov/reports-statements/financial-rep...
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/prioritization/
Of note is this:
> First, under any hypothetical prioritization scenario, the federal government would be failing to meet some of its obligations. There is no legal precedent for choosing to pay certain bills before others. Immediate court battles would likely arise over the legality of paying, for example, foreign bondholders over American citizens. What would be the logical interpretation of a court ruling in favor of a legal claimant? A default on the full faith and credit of the United States?
Given that the constitution talks about "debts" without being specific about what that means, I think it's also debatable whether or not the 14th amendment applies to other types of spending obligations beyond just interest owed to bondholders.
It's also not clear to me the 14th amendment means that the federal government can't default on the debt. A fairer reading is that it means that the government can't repudiate particular bonds. E.g. Biden can't say "I'm not going to pay any bonds issued under Trump."
It clearly doesn't say anything about "bills." Section 4 says:
> The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
The distinction between "debt" and "expenses" is clear and longstanding. Even in the middle ages people would be able to tell you the difference between the crown repaying borrowed money and the crown paying expenses: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic....
Technically appropriations are a maximum the government can spend, not a requirement to spend that money. However, Congress does not like the idea of the present just refusing to provide all the appropriated funds to some programs, so they wrote the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which requires the president to make all the appropriated funds available to the specified programs. Note the word available. Programs are not technically obligated to use all the money, but technically that is up to the program's head. In practice programs will almost always use as close to all of the money as they can get, since if they don't use all the funds, Congress might choose to reduce their appropriation next year.
Because the constitution seems to mandate mandates paying the debt, and leaves the amount of debt up to congress (Article I Section 8), upon hitting the debt ceiling, the president must continue to pay the debt, and must not issue more debt. But the Constitution does not require making all appropriations available so the Constitution will overrule the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, in such a scenario. Clearly if it is impossible for a president to adhere to both the constitution, and a statutory law, it is the statutory law that gives way, not the constitution itself.
So X-day should trigger a partial government shutdown, while the government continues to pay its debt, and fulfill contracts and other statutory payments, but cuts off enough other spending to stop exceeding revenue. This would be similar to what happens when congress fails to pass an appropriations bill.
There are some wrinkles, but generally, litigation over the President’s ability to decline to spend appropriated funds has indicated that it largely does. Now, if Congress had connected the debt ceiling to either a specific formula for funding reduction or a specific grant of authority to impound appropriations, that would be different, but as it is the President, assuming both are independently valid, cannot faithfully execute laws appropriating funds and the law setting the debt limit.
Personally, I’d like to see what happens if the entire executive branch just goes on-strike, French-style.
The debt-ceiling is what makes that whole exercise constitutional to begin with. Congress said: "okay, Treasury can borrow money, but only up to this much." If the executive disregards the debt ceiling, that would break the fiction of delegation, and the executive will have fully wrested a fundamental Congressional power away from Congress. That's the same reason why the 14th amendment cannot override the debt ceiling. Yes, the debt ceiling is a statute. But without it, Treasury has no power to issue any debt.
Hope the Republicans enjoy the civil rights violation lawsuits from everyone who suffers actual damages when their mortgage interest rates go up due to the Republican's violating the 14th Amendment so that the Republicans can benefit from that fallout. Especially now that the head of the Republican party is on the record stating that a failure to raise the debt limit will benefit the Republican's politically come election time.
Congress also largely controls revenue. The overwhelming majority of revenue is taxes. There is little that the president can do to significantly change the revenue received. [1] Since congress has left a deliberate deficit, the president is left with no choice but to issue more debt to make up that shortfall. But the debt ceiling would prevent that.
The classical thinking (for some reason) is that if the debt ceiling is hit, the president will be forced not to pay the interest on the debt, since the appropriations are mandatory. This is the view that sees the debt ceiling itself as questionably constitutional, viewing the act of appropriating more than expected revenues to be authorizing the issuance of debt. Unfortunately it is also a wrong view.
The correct view is that it is the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that is unconstitutional, and that upon hitting the debt ceiling the President is obligated to impound appropriations as needed to avoid going over the debt ceiling. The result would probably be a partial government shutdown, similar to what happens when congress fails to pass an appropriation bill.
This, of course, only works if the revenue received still exceeds the required interest payments on the debt.
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Footnote: [1] The treasury cannot even print more paper money, since that is up the federal Reserve for Federal Reserve Notes, and while U.S. Notes are technically still authorized, Congress has set a limit of $300,000,000 U.S. Notes. It could mint more coins and deposit them with fed, but manufacturing costs are appropriated funds, and it is not possible to mint enough normal coins with the appropriated amounts to make a dent. Many coins (including the penny, and the >$1 precious metal ones cost more to make then their face value). Hence why the trillion dollar coin proposal used a platinum coin, which is the only category where the Treasurer gets to pick the size design and face value.
Given that, you're correct. Faced with a choice between unconstitutionally exercising powers delegated by Congress in violation of the express terms of delegation, and violating an ordinary statute, clearly the correct course of action is to violate the statute.