Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I predicted this would happen even before Biden took office.
Some left-leaning commentators argue that Biden should mint a trillion dollar coin, or rely on the Fourteenth Amendment, or follow the rule of the least unconstitutional act if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner. And indeed, he will have to do one of those things if everything goes wrong. All of the approaches have legal merit, and should be sustained by the judiciary. The problem is that the markets know there are reactionary, chaos-loving potential plaintiffs out there, and that they can find a reactionary, chaos-loving Trumpist judge who will take their claims seriously. As a result, every payment of any kind by the federal government will carry a tinge of illegality, interest rates will rise, and serious damage will be done to the economy even if Biden ultimately wins the case.
In other words, just get rid of the filibuster on this ridiculous issue and be done with it.