A member of Congress is warning that Joe Biden’s refusal to work with Congress to address the looming need to raise the national debt limit is a “national security threat.”
The comments come from Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, chairman of the house Intelligence Committee.
He was joined by Democrat Rep. Jim Himes, of Connecticut, in a conversation about the coming deadline, and Himes said, “The Russians and the Chinese would seek to exploit it. The United States has never really come close defaulting on its debt before. So it’s hard for us to imagine what that might look like.”
Turner said Biden should bear the weight of the problem.
“I think if the president fails to negotiate with Congress and has continued out-of-control spending that threatens our economy, that it is a national security threat,” he said.
The GOP-run House already has adopted a bill that would, in fact, directly address the borrowing limit.
But it also would cut some federal spending, and Biden has stated over and over he will not negotiate. He insists that he alone can – and will – dictate the terms of congressional legislation.
The AP speculates in its report on the issue whether Biden could, simply by executive order, raise the limit.
The limit of $31.381 trillion will be reached within weeks.
The AP reported that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claimed there are “no good options” to avoid a “calamity” if Congress fails to raise the limit.
But the House already has, and simple adoption by the Democrat-run Senate and Biden would solve the issue.
The plan pushed through the House by Speaker Kevin McCarthy raises the limit and adopts spending reductions.
Biden refuses to consider that.
The report said, “Yellen was asked on ABC whether Biden could bypass Congress by citing the Constitution’s 14th Amendment that the ‘validity’ of U.S. debt ‘shall not be questioned.’ Yellen did not answer definitively, but said it should not be considered a valid solution.”
And the report noted Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., confirmed the Constitution is “very clear that spending — all those details around spending and money actually has to come through Congress.”
The report noted, “The 14th Amendment question was studied by Obama administration lawyers during the 2011 debt limit showdown, which informed Biden’s refusal to negotiate now with Republicans on raising the debt limit. At the time, Justice Department lawyers said they did not believe the president had the unilateral power to issue new debt.”
This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
This post originally appeared on WND News Center.