“Not a Thing” Seven Legal Reasons the Federal “Debt Ceiling” is Null & Void

Abstract

After 12 years of “Debt Ceiling” nonsense, it is gratifying at last to see many officials and scholars now casting doubt on the Ceiling’s validity. It is somewhat regrettable, however, that attention appears to be focused upon the 14th Amendment alone where these doubts are concerned. The Debt Ceiling as it would be applied by today’s rump Republican faction is indeed an affront to the Debt Clause of the 14th Amendment. But it is also an affront to the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which made the Federal Budget its own “ceiling”—and “floor”—not to mention additional Constitutional provisions including the “Take Care” and “Presentment” Clauses, along with familiar canons of statutory construction including the Later-in-Time Rule, the Lex Specialis Doctrine, the Constitutional Avoidance Doctrine, and the Absurd Result Principle. This Essay elaborates these seven grounds and concludes with a prudential recommendation that the Senate, the President, and all serious Members of the House or Representatives declare the “Debt Ceiling” null and void, thereafter ignoring it henceforth.

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Robert Hockett

Edward Cornell Professor of Law, Cornell; Adjunct Professor of Finance, Georgetown; Senior Counsel, Westwood Capital, LLC. Formerly Federal Reserve Bank of New York & International Monetary Fund.