It’s almost amusing to hear President Barack Obama and leading Democrats in Congress demand an increase in the non-limiting, so-called federal “debt limit” — which is currently set at $14.29 trillion.
You see, only a few short years ago — when Republican President George W. Bush was in office — then-Sen. Obama and many of his Democrat colleagues were denouncing a proposed increase in the debt limit.
Consider some of their comments from 2006, when there was an attempt to increase the debt limit to a much smaller (though still too large) $9 trillion:
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” Obama declared. He said that by increasing the debt limit, Congress was placing “the burden of the bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.”
Meanwhile, Democrat Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada said, “If my Republican friends believe that increasing our debt by almost $800 billion today and more than $3 trillion over the last five years is the right thing to do, they should be upfront about it. They should explain why they think that more debt is good for the economy.”
He added, “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 creditors?”
Reid didn’t stop there. He was so fired up against raising the debt limit that he said, “[M]ost Americans know that increasing debt is the last thing we should be doing. After all, I repeat, the baby boomers are about to retire. Under the circumstances, any credible economist would tell you we should be reducing debt, not increasing it. Democrats won’t be making arguments to support this legislation, which will weaken our country.”
So raising the “debt limit” to a much smaller figure back in 2006 would “weaken the country” and harm “our children and grandchildren,” Obama and Reid believed at that time. Obama even called the very idea of raising the debt in 2006 a “sign of leadership failure.”
Well, now Obama is the leader of our country, and Reid is the majority leader in the Senate. Yet they strangely think it is absolutely essential to raise the debt limit beyond the already appalling figure of $14.29 trillion.
In a recent interview for NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Reid said he could not recall opposing a debt limit increase in 2006.
“I don’t really know what vote you’re talking about …,” he said. “I’m saying today that we have to raise the debt ceiling. There’s no alternative.”
Of course, the best “alternative” is to slash federal spending. The current debt limit is expected to be reached within two to four months. Shouldn’t Congress make a good-faith effort to drastically reduce its wasteful spending before it even contemplates raising the debt limit still further?
Obviously the United States should not default on its debts, but doing more of the borrowing and spending that created those massive debts is not the solution. The American people would have far more tolerance for an eventual increase in the debt limit if Congress first showed a sincere willingness to cut its outrageous spending.
But that demands a type of “leadership” — by the president and Congress — that is woefully lacking.