By Katelynn Richardson
A federal judge postponed a hearing on President Joe Biden’s authority to invoke the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling after the president and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced they struck a deal Saturday.
U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts Judge Richard Stearns had scheduled the hearing for a government union’s lawsuit against Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the president for Wednesday, seeking to get ahead of the estimated June 1 deadline for raising the limit. In a Monday filing, the Department of Justice argued that the hearing “may not be necessary” in light of McCarthy and Biden’s agreement, requesting the court stay the briefing.
“Because the X-date is now estimated to be June 5, and because Congress may pass legislation this week raising the Debt Limit, Defendants submit that proceeding on the current schedule would be unnecessarily burdensome and would waste both the parties’ and the Court’s resources,” the Department wrote. “Indeed, the relief that Plaintiff seeks may be counterproductive in light of the agreement in principle that has been reached.”
Stearns agreed to put off the hearing on Monday.
“In deference to the efforts of the executive and legislative branches to resolve the current impasse over the debt ceiling statute, the court will postpone the hearing on [the union’s] motion for a preliminary injunction scheduled for this Wednesday, May 31, 2023, pending any further order of the court,” Stearns wrote.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said Friday that the administration would not invoke the 14th Amendment.
“The 14th Amendment can’t solve our challenges now. Ultimately, the only thing that can do that is Congress,” he said on CNN.
The deal between Biden and McCarthy would cap federal spending increases at one percent per year for a six-year period and keep non-defense discretionary spending at Fiscal Year 2022 levels, as well as including work requirements for welfare recipients and restarting student loan payments.
“The agreement also represents a compromise which means no one got everything they want, but that’s the responsibility of governing,” Biden said during a Sunday press conference. “The Speaker and I made clear from the start that the only way forward was a bipartisan agreement. That agreement now goes to the U.S. House and Senate. I strongly urge both chambers to pass that agreement.
McCarthy called the deal “a step in the right direction” on Sunday. ““We were able to do this when the President said he wasn’t even going to talk to us,” he said.
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