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1 1 (June 1, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govelvb0001 and id is 1 raw text is: \Congressional ______ RlesearchS ervice Debating the Public Debt Clause June 1, 2023 As early as June 5, 2023, according to Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, the federal government could face a binding statutory debt limit. If the debt limit were to bind, the Secretary would be unable to issue further debt beyond the $31.38 trillion that would then be outstanding, a figure that encompasses virtually all federal debt. Without additional borrowing authority, the federal government may be unable to pay all obligations as they come due. Congress is thus considering the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (FRA), legislation that, among other things, would suspend the debt limit through 2024. Though legislation like the FRA would address the debt limit in the near term, on its own it would not prevent the recurrence of future debt limit episodes. As a result, debates over the legal implications of a binding debt limit remain. Some have argued as part of these debates that the prospect of the federal government being unable to pay all obligations as they come due raises questions under a provision of the Fourteenth Amendment commonly known as the Public Debt Clause. The Clause states, 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. In early May 2023, President Joseph Biden stated that he had been considering the 14th Amendment in connection with the debt limit. On May 28, after agreeing to the FRA's debt limit suspension framework, President Biden reiterated he was exploring the idea that we would at a later date, a year or two from now, decide how the Clause would affect the need for further action to suspend or raise the debt limit. Much about the Clause remains unclear. The Clause's drafters confronted specific concerns as to Civil War-era debts, yet drafted the Clause using language amenable to a broader application. Moreover, the Supreme Court's 1935 decision in Perry v. United States stands as the only examination of the Clause's text by the Justices, but from the time the opinion was issued commentators have characterized its holdings as baffling. Commentators have sought to address this uncertainty by crafting arguments describing the Clause's effect, if any, on a statutory debt limit. This Sidebar surveys these aspects of the Public Debt Clause: its history, judicial interpretation, and contemporary debates over its relevance to a binding debt limit. Clause History December 1865 saw the opening of the first session of the 39th Congress, the first meeting of that body after the Civil War's end. In mid-December, the House and Senate established a Joint Committee on Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10973 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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