The suggestion that the 14th Amendment’s Section 4 empowers the president to blow out the statutory debt ceiling and unilaterally issue bonds is frivolous, notwithstanding President Biden’s latest contortion (Captain Courageous now says he’s pretty sure he could do it but would need court approval, which wouldn’t happen in time to avoid a default). I won’t belabor the point because I could not improve on what we’ve already said, both in our editorial and in some excellent posts — see, e.g., here, here, here, here, plus Charlie’s overarching explanation of why Biden does things that even he, in his congenital dimness, knows are illegal and unconstitutional.

I do have a practical question, though: Who would buy U.S. debt that has not been authorized by Congress?

We already have a looming debt disaster in that the inevitable return to more historically normal interest rates has caused the government’s interest payments to surge. Doesn’t seem like the best time for a president to do crazy stuff, like Biden bonds, that would have no practical fundraising upside but would project recklessness and instability. The net effect would be to make all U.S. bonds a riskier proposition, which can only raise our borrowing costs at a time when we’re already hemorrhaging.

We are living in a profoundly silly time when an American president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, is so cowed by the Bolshevik Left that he sees patent lawlessness that will solve no problems while creating even worse ones as preferable to a modest, lawful legislative compromise, in which neither he nor Republicans get everything they want, but both would get credit for avoiding an eminently avoidable catastrophe — you know, what used to be thought of as governing.