If political discussions to raise the national debt ceiling fail, US government employees have asked a federal judge to order Janet Yellen to continue borrowing to keep the government open.
McConnell is not clear whether he has any plan to solve the US debt crisis.
The National Association of Government Employees Inc., a union of 75,000 federal government and military employees, filed suit Monday in an effort to avoid the kind of government shutdown experienced in 2019, when Democratic Congressional leaders refused to fund Trump's Mexican border wall.
Republicans and Biden are in a standoff over the $31.4 trillion borrowing limit, demanding promises of future spending cuts before they approve a higher ceiling. The president has insisted on a clean increase, with budget talks kept separate. Biden will meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other House leaders Tuesday to discuss the debt ceiling.
NAGE argues that the Debt Ceiling Act is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers and obligation to pay America's debts. The union alleges that neither Biden nor Yellen is entitled to pick and choose which bills to pay if the US defaults on its borrowing by failing to borrow. That is Congress's job, it says.
While not challenging here in principle the controversial proposal that Congress can limit the indebtedness of the United States, plaintiff contends that Congress may not do so without at least setting the order and priority of payments once that limit is reached, instead of leaving it to the president to do so, NAGE's lawyers said in a complaint in Boston federal court.
The NAGE is seeking a court order to prevent layoffs, furloughs or reduced benefits for federal workers if Congress refuses to raise the limit on how much the US can borrow to pay its bills.
The Association asked that Yellen and Biden be barred from involving or relying on the Debt Limit Statute to defund any part of the operations of the federal government approved by Congress. As early as June 1, Yellen has warned that the US will run out of cash.
Janet Yellen v. National Association of Government Employees Inc., 1:34 - 11991, U.S. District Court, Boston None Data Science Is the Hot New Master s at B-Schools.