Lawsuit: Yellen should ignore ‘unconstitutional’ debt limit
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By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and FATIMA HUSSEIN
May 8, 2023 GMT


WASHINGTON (AP) — A union of government employees on Monday sued Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and President Joe Biden to try to stop them from complying with the law that limits the government’s total debt, which the lawsuit contends is unconstitutional.

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The lawsuit, filed by the National Association of Government Employees, says that if Yellen abides by the debt limit once it becomes binding, possibly next month, she would have to choose which federal obligations to actually pay. Some analysts have argued that the government could prioritize interest payments on Treasury securities. That would ensure that the United States wouldn’t default on its securities, which have long been regarded as the safest investments in the world and are vital to global financial transactions.

But under the Constitution, the lawsuit argues, the president and Treasury secretary have no authority to decide which payments to make because the Constitution grants spending power to Congress. Doing so, it contends, would violate the Constitution’s separation of powers.

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The NAGE represents about 75,000 government employees who it says are at risk of being laid off or losing pay and benefits should Congress fail to raise the debt ceiling. The debt limit, currently US$31.4 trillion, was reached in January. But Yellen has since used various accounting measures to avoid breaching it.

Last week, Yellen warned that the debt limit would become binding as early as June 1, much earlier than many analyses had previously predicted, because tax receipts have come in lower than projected.

Laurence Tribe, a law professor at Harvard University, suggested that “it is possible that the Treasury Department would welcome the suit” because it expresses the view that “the ceiling is not a permissible bargaining tool for Congress to employ because it simply threatens to destroy the economy and hold the president hostage.”

Tribe has written a column in the New York Times expressing support for the idea that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional. White House aides have explored the notion of having the president invoke the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says the “validity” of the public debt “shall not be questioned.”

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Norm Eisen, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, suggested that it may be “up to the Supreme Court to determine whether there is a constitutional option to resolve this hostage crisis.”

“If Congress is going to demonstrate this propensity for hostage taking,” Eisen said, then “a reallocation of authority in this dimension away from Congress” may be called for.

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Since Yellen warned a week ago that the government could default on its debt as early as June 1, interest rates on one-month Treasury bills have been shooting higher. They reached 5.35% Monday, up from 4.12% a week earlier — an unusually sharp move.

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In the wake of three large bank failures in the past two months, Brusuelas, like many economists, thinks many banks are pulling back on lending to bolster their finances, a trend that could weaken the economy.

“A partial or full default would exacerbate those trends and result in a pullback in spending and investment by households and firms, as well as an increase in unemployment,” Brusuelas said. “It would almost surely tip the economy into a full-blown recession.”


https://apnews.com/article/debt-limit-ye...bffe0aea6c
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#2

And yet gun ownership mass shooting on daily basis must remain constitutional ... Disunited Shite of Assmericunt, a land of hypocrites

KTV妹妹说,香港人无义,台湾人无情,新加坂人无智 Big Grin
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#3

(09-05-2023, 12:41 PM)Tangsen Wrote:  And yet gun ownership mass shooting on daily basis must remain constitutional ... Disunited Shite of Assmericunt, a land of hypocrites


Cowboy land led by Mafia but without leadership qualities of real Mafia !  Rotfl

Interesting observation. One point for you!  Big Grin
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