The following is a guest post by Kadan Stadelmann, CTO of Komodo Blockchain.
The 14th Amendment and the Debt Limit
The debt limit is the amount of money the United States government can borrow to pay its existing legal obligations. These include Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and more.
In June 2023, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 suspended the debt limit through January, 1 2025. The U.S. Treasury anticipates that sometime thereafter—say, somewhere between Jan. 14 and Jan. 23– the U.S. government would be required to take extraordinary measures to not default on its obligations. After all, default is not an option.
In Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, the U.S. Constitution reads that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law…shall not be questioned.” The Amendment was adopted in 1868.
A Congress during Reconstruction…
