Obama: Not Always a Fan of Upping Debt Ceiling January 3, 2011 12:50 P.M. By Katrina Trinko
While President Obama’s economic advisor Austin Goolsbee argued Sunday that a refusal by the Senate to increase the government’s debt ceiling (currently $14.3 trillion) would be “catastrophic” and a sign of “insanity,” that’s not the position the president has held in the past.
Senator Obama – “Here are Obama’s thoughts on the debt limit in 2006, when he voted against increasing the ceiling: The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. “
In 2007 and in 2008, when the Senate voted to increase the limit by $850 billion and $800 billion respectively, Obama did not bother to vote. (He did vote for TARP, which increased the debt limit by $700 billion.)
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/256199/obama-not-always-fan-upping-debt-ceiling-katrina-trinko –
Obama said it best, that there is a failure of leadership, and it is his leadership that has failed the nation.
When it comes to saving our economic future and the nation, President Obama and the Democrat Party make up the party of “NO”.
dprin339
Hacksaw
hittosan
hybridtalk1
myfoxmystere
mzkatie
polarbear20
therealgirlscout
Cleveland Foxers 
Give me a break. The Republicans are just as bad. Posturing and refusing to make any concessions. Democrats and Republicans = fiddling while Rome burns.
LikeLike
Harry Reid, 2006: “Raising the debt limit is the last thing we should do. It would weaken the country. It would hurt the economy.” He said, “If my Republican friends believe that increasing our debt by almost $800 billion today and more than three trillion over the last five years is the right thing to do, they should be up front about it. They should explain why they think more debt is good for the economy. How can the Republican majority in this Congress explain to their constituents that trillions of dollars in new debt is good for our economy? How can they explain that they think it’s fair to force our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren to finance this debt through higher taxes? That’s what it will have to be. Why is it right to increase our nation’s dependence on foreign credit?”
LikeLike
Five years ago Harry Reid said, “How can we destroy the economy for our children by raising all this debt?” This week, Harry Reid says, “How can we destroy the economy by not raising our debt?”
LikeLike
GS – “The Republicans are just as bad. Posturing and refusing to make any concessions.”
Think about it, we have no money to spend, and are 14 Trillion dollars in debt. You are asking the Republicans to join with the party that claims the bridge isn’t out, as they fall to their death below the failed bridge. When your credit card gets maxed out, do you solve the problem of debt by raising the limit on the card or by spending less on credit, and paying off your debt?
As of 2008, the D Congress and President Obama went on the spending spree, not the Republicans. They made the word “Trillion” common in today;s conversations. It was the democrats who drove the car over the cliff. Why are you making the Republican party, who said “no” to all that spending, responsible for compromise? It is like a bad wife spending all her husbands credit cards to their limit, and asking the husband to compromise by raising the limits on the credit cards, to solve the wife’s addiction to spending.
Better to take those cards away. (IMHO)
LikeLike
Common Sense: When you are deep in a hole, you stop digging.
Democrat party says, If we don’t keep digging, we can never fill the hole.
And many American’s nod their heads in agreement….
LikeLike
Why do you feel the need to quote Harry Reid to me? I already said that the Democrats are JUST AS MUCH to blame as the Republicans. You seem to be implying that the Democrats are all WRONG and that the republican view is all CORRECT. It is delusional to think that one party is 100% percent right about this issue. I don’t want to see the Democrats give in on some issues, but they MUST for the sake of our country. Same goes for the Republicans.
LikeLike
No offence GS, I was only putting the words out there of some of our Democrat leaders. The Republicans who are RINOs or ruling class members are just as bad as the socialist loving Democrats. They should all be voted out (IMHO). The ruling class Rs and Ds are of the same mind. Take our freedom, and leave us with nothing. Enslave us to debt while they go golfing every day and on vacations and eat beef that costs $50 a pound.
LikeLike
Look, I totally agree that spending has to be cut. But not on the backs of the sick (Medicare) or the elderly (Social Security). There is PLENTY of wasteful , repeat, WASTEFUL, spending in our government. Let’s start there. Or maybe we should start with the salaries and pensions of everyone in Congress? Sigh. Somehow, that will never happen.
LikeLike
I don’t believe any of the Republican plans balanced the budget on the backs of sick and old people. The Democrats said that to scare people who don’t pay attention. Happens all the time. However, if you look at the budget, the size has never decreased, but it has increased every year. Even when Republicans do those “draconian” cuts liberals cry about all the time, the budget still goes up, not down. That is because in DC a cut means that instead of giving a program the normal 12% increase to waste, they will get 7% to waste.
But what happens when the money runs out? Do we say that it is too bad, all the sick and elderly and poor must still get their government check? Is there is no money left, then what?
LikeLike
That’s a question that no one has the answer to, I’m afraid. Another Great Depression? Who knows?
LikeLike
Here’s an example: Our government spends $770 million to help fix the sewer systems in cairo Egypt to save all the buildings that get flooded. Now, I’m sympathetic to the Egyptians. The history in Cairo deserves to be preserved for future generations. But when we are in a fiscal crisis in our own country, this money needs to be used here FIRST. The sewer system in Cairo is NOT our responsibility at this time. As much as I’d like to help, (especially since I haven’t been able to see Egypt yet), I repeat, our country and Americans come first.
LikeLike
C’mon Democrats and Republicans – vote to raise the debt ceiling. You can do it! After all, Ronald Reagan did it 17 TIMES!! And we all know how much the republicans LOVED Reagan. But now it seems they don’t want to. Is it just posturing, because they want to defy the President’s wishes? Hmmmm…….
LikeLike