Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dodges question on invoking 14th Amendment to avoid default

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dodged questions Sunday about whether the Biden administration is considering invoking the 14th Amendment to avoid default if Congress fails to lift the debt ceiling.

Administration officials have said a clause in the 14th Amendment prohibits the U.S. from ceasing debt payments even if it causes the country to breach its debt limit, but President Biden has stopped short of saying he’s willing to take such drastic unilateral action.

“Our priority is to make sure that Congress does its job,” Ms. Yellen said on ABC’s “This Week.” “There is no way to protect our financial system and 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. This would be a constitutional crisis.”

Asked repeatedly about whether the administration was considering the 14th Amendment as a fail-safe, Ms. Yellen demurred. She suggested she did not want to get ahead of a White House meeting this week between Mr. Biden and top congressional leaders as Washington barrels toward default that could occur as soon as June 1.

House Republicans have passed legislation with steep cuts to the federal budget that would raise the debt ceiling for the next year, but Mr. Biden and Senate Democrats have rebuffed demands to negotiate spending cuts. The time and place for such talks is during the annual budget process, they say.

“I don’t want to consider emergency options. What’s important is the 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,” Ms. Yellen said. “What to do if Congress fails to meet its responsibility? There are simply no good options, and the ones that you’ve listed are among the not good options.”