The perennial fights in Washington D.C. over the extension of the debt limit have become routine, and on the whole rather boring. They generally go something like this: Congress spends enough money that it finds itself approaching a breach in the debt ceiling. The consequences of this (they are real) are shouted from the proverbial mountaintops. Democrats (for the most part) argue for simply raising the ceiling and carrying on. Republicans (for the most part) argue for only doing so if that increase is tied to some sort of cut or at least limitation on new spending in the vain hope that maybe we don’t find ourselves in this predicament, at least not as often. This goes back and forth for a while, the president weighs in, generally (but not exclusively) on the side of whichever party he belongs to, and eventually a deal is made. And eventually Congress spends its way up against that limit, and we do it all again.

After a few cycles of this, the whole thing becomes rather humdrum and we turn again to the soap opera plots which keep national politics interesting.

It is therefore almost a relief when someone throws a wrench in from the lunatic fringe. And then a little less so when one realizes that people who really ought to know better are beginning to look at the wrench as though it has a point.

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The wrench, in this case, is the absurd argument that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution somehow grants the president an out on the question of the debt limit. Section 4 of the amendment clarifies that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law… shall not be questioned.” In the elastic reasoning of some on the left, this translates into “if you can’t convince Congress to authorize an increase in the debt limit, ignore the debt limit.” Brilliant!

And in no way, shape or form legal. The Constitution is quite clear on the relative authorities of the branches: “the Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States,” and “to borrow Money on the credit of the United States.”  We may very well fight until the end of time over what the hell they meant exactly by “a well-regulated militia,” but on this point the Constitution is not ambiguous.

So Congress alone has the power of the purse, and the sole authority to issue debt. Right. So what’s all this Fourteenth Amendment nonsense? Well, the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted shortly after the Civil War, as a way to ward off retaliatory efforts by embittered southerners. The first, most famous, and most important clauses were in the first section, which granted citizenship to freed slaves and prohibited any state from depriving a citizen’s privileges, life, liberty or property except by due process of law. The fourth section made sacrosanct the national debt of the United States, and repudiated Confederate debt.

Fast forward to 1917. Before then, every dollar of debt incurred by the United States, i.e, every individual bond issue, required an act of Congress. The Second Liberty Bond Act allowed Congress to authorize the issuance of debt in periodic lump sums instead; in other words, it granted the Treasury Department permission to issue bonds as it saw fit, up to a specified limit – the debt ceiling.

Nowhere in any of this is there even the implicit suggestion the chief executive is magically granted the legal ability to ignore the debt ceiling or issue debt on his own authority. What the Fourteenth Amendment DOES say is that debt is legitimate and needs to be paid. Yes, Congress would be breaking the law if it refuses to pay it. And the president will be breaking the law if he ignores the debt ceiling. As Dan McLaughlin put it in National Review, the debt ceiling is not a LIMIT on executive power, it is a GRANT of power.

So Biden and the Democrats cannot simply wish away the debt ceiling. Congress can raise it, or, if they don’t, the president will need to prioritize debt payments over everything else. Congressional Republicans have offered to do the former, in exchange for some modest spending reductions. That sounds like a good deal for the president, and the best we can do until serious fiscal reforms make a debt ceiling unnecessary.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.