US: Democratic Senators Call on Biden to Invoke 14th Amendment to Prevent Debt Default

A group of Democratic Senators has called on US President Joe Biden to prepare to invoke the 14th Amendment of the country’s constitution to keep the United States from going into default. The preparation comes as Biden continues to negotiate with congressional Republicans, who seek cuts in federal spending.

Democratic Senators, led by independent Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats, wrote a letter to Biden on Thursday, calling on him to prepare to invoke the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment should the talks with congressional Republicans fall through. The lawmakers said while they welcomed Biden’s efforts in getting a bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling, they said that Republicans were not “acting in good faith.”

“We write to urgently request that you prepare to exercise your authority under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which clearly states: ‘The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned’,” they wrote. “Using this authority would allow the United States to continue to pay its bills on time, without delay, preventing a global catastrophe.”

Biden is still holding negotiations with congressional Republicans, namely, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, as he is in Japan this week for the G7 summit in Hiroshima, ahead of the June 1 date that the US Treasury said that the government could start running out of funds should the debt ceiling fail to be raised.

Congressional Republicans have demanded major federal spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. However, Biden and fellow Democrats have maintained that a clean bill is what is necessary to raise the debt ceiling.

Meanwhile, several other Democratic members of Congress renewed their calls for an independent investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, saying that her death was part of a broader and continuing abuse Israel has committed against Palestinians. Democratic lawmakers joined Abu Akleh’s family in Washington DC to renew the demands for an independent investigation into the journalist’s killing. Abu Akleh is an American citizen.

Abu Akleh was fatally shot by Israeli forces in May last year while covering a raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

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