In Case of Emergency, Don’t Break the 14th Amendment

By Ted Cruz,

magine this scenario: America, dealing with massive debts and deficits after a period of significant inflation, finds itself having to assure creditors that it nevertheless can and will honor its financial obligations. That was the reality in 1868—and it’s the reality today. Yet the solution some on the left are offering up for our current fiscal debacle would cannibalize the constitutional assurance that Congress ratified nearly a century and a half ago.

In 1868, America had recently concluded a bloody and costly civil war. In the wake of the Union victory, Washington wished to make clear that it would honor its own obligations but not those the Confederacy had incurred. This made sense. Why would we pay England, France and other creditors for their efforts to bankroll a rebellion? This promise to pay for U.S. debts was memorialized in Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which established the validity of American public debt.

Today, creditors need the same assurance after out-of-control spending from multiple administrations has left the U.S. with a staggering debt, especially as we approach the congressionally set credit maximum, or “debt ceiling.”

President Biden must confront this fiscal crisis, but some of the “solutions” his party has offered stretch the Constitution to its breaking point.

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