‘No good options’ if Congress doesn’t pass debt ceiling bill, she says
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she will not rule out the possibility of declaring the debt ceiling unconstitutional if Congress cannot resolve its standoff over the debt ceiling, but said there are “no good options” on the table.
“There is no way to protect our financial system in our economy other than Congress doing its job and raising the debt ceiling and enabling us to pay our bills. And we should not get to the point where we need to consider whether the president can go on issuing debt,” Yellen told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
She was responding to a question about whether the Treasury could use the 14th Amendment to declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional. It reads, in part, 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.”
But the U.S. Constitution also gives Congress the power of the purse. If Yellen invoked the amendment, it would trigger a “constitutional crisis,” she told ABC News.
When pressed further by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton White House press secretary, Yellen said that there was nothing the Biden administration could do to avoid an “economic catastrophe” if the 14th Amendment was invoked.
“I’m still not exactly clear on whether it’s on the table or off the table,” Stephanopoulos asked her. “Is it a ‘break glass in case of emergency’ option?”
Yellen responded by saying: “Look, I don’t want to consider emergency options. What’s important is that members of Congress recognize what their responsibility is, and avert what will surely be—regardless of how it’s handled, what option is used to handle it—an economic and financial catastrophe.”
Stephanopoulos then suggested to Yellen that “it sounds like you’re saying you don’t want to but you may have to.” She replied: “What to do if Congress fails to meet its responsibility, there is simply no good options. And the ones that you’ve listed are among the not good options.”
