The ongoing debate about the debt ceiling raises the critical question of whether or not the United States could ever constitutionally default on what it owes.
The debt ceiling effectively stops the Treasury from paying for appropriated expenses after the limit has been reached. Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, however, makes the notion of a debt ceiling moot.
It states, “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.”
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The U.S. cannot willfully stop paying its debts. If Congress continues its reckless spending, future generations will have to pay for the mistakes of elected officials today.
The burgeoning debt endangers our nation’s financial stability, and citizens must constantly question how public servants spend taxpayer funds.
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As state representatives, we work diligently to craft Missouri’s balanced budget each year, but such fiscal discipline is all too rare in the federal government.
The current crisis has been averted for now, but there will be another self-made one in just a few short months. It is time to hold our representatives in Washington to account and ask them what they hoped to gain by endangering the health of our economy.