All of the celebratory glitz and glamor of the president’s second inauguration are over. Now the nation’s elected leaders need to get down to business. First on the list of things to do? Solve the nation’s debt problem.
Listen to what Sen. Barack Obama said in a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 2006 as a matter of record:
“Mr. President, I rise today to talk about America’s debt problem. 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.
“Over the past five years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is ‘trillion’ with a ‘T.’ That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next five years, between now and 2011, the president’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the federal government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland, security, transportation, and the veterans benefits combined....
“Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just five years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.
“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.
“I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”
Great, Mr. President. One can hardly argue with your solid reasoning.
Keith Hansen
Comments (10)
Add commentLefters?????
Where oh where are you?
OMG, Stop The Presses!!! Politicians engage in politics !!
This time, it's over the debt ceiling! Keith must have pulled this commentary out of the "lazy-day file", as the text of Obama's 2006 speech could have been quoted when this discussion came up in 2011. It bears a slight review, I guess.
"As the saying goes, “where you stand depends on where you sit.” This is certainly true of the votes to boost the national debt limit, where almost by tradition, the party not holding the presidency refused to support an increase in the debt limit."
The president has acknowledged that his previous vote against the debt limit was “a political vote.” (Again, OMG!) On Monday, at a news conference, he urged lawmakers to boost the debt limit without conditions: “We’re going to have to make sure that people are looking at this in a responsible way, rather than just through the lens of politics.” (In other words, don’t do what I did back when I was a lawmaker.)
"In making his case, Obama noted: “The debt ceiling is not a question of authorizing more spending. Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize more spending. It simply allows the country to pay for spending that Congress has already committed to.” He added that he was willing to have a “conversation” about reducing the deficit, but the debt limit was not the right vehicle." http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/annotating-obamas-...
Our debt ceiling has been increased 94 times since 1944. "Given the recent reluctance of the more conservative wing of the GOP to raise the ceiling, and the general GOP resistance to raising taxes, you may be surprised to learn that over the years Republican presidents have raised the debt ceiling more times than Democratic presidents."
After Obama's above remarks in '06, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) rose to rebut his comments.
“Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of final passage. Raising the debt limit is necessary to preserve the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. We cannot as a Congress pass spending bills and tax bills and then refuse to pay our bills. Refusing to raise the debt limit is like refusing to pay your credit card bill — after you’ve used your credit card.
The time to control the deficits and debt is when we are voting on the spending bills and the tax bills that create it. Raising the debt limit is about meeting the obligations we have already incurred. We must meet our obligations. Vote for this bill.”
"Here, Grassley has found his inner President Obama. The increase in the debt limit passed on a vote of 52 to 48, with a handful of Republicans joining all Democrats (including then-Senators Joe Biden and Hillary Rodham Clinton) in opposition. (Grassley has no great record on the debt ceiling, generally voting for increases when Bush was president and against them when Obama was president.)"
Politics being played by politicians. What next?
Nice blathering
doublespeak Bubba. You should run for office.
Flip flop
Is the American political way...both parties...
Blathering, F-n-B?
Or is it that you dislike anything that requires more of you than a 1-second sound bite?
What difference?
AS Hillary would say "what difference does it make anyway"! They (congress and Obama) are all manipulative crooks when it comes to being honest. I am not sure I will even vote anymore....its disgusting.
Politics being played by all
94 wrongs doesn't make it right.
Also, amazing that people are able to read into President
Obama's words to determine what he meant.
That is a gift.
Agree Sadie, facts better than words
Like the fact that federal spending has risen very little under Obama in comparison with recent republican presidents? Seems the trend for republicans to buck their supposed fiscal conservative roots with high deficits--and democrats to actually be more fiscally responsible--continues.
Raising the debt
more in four years than Bush did in eight is fiscally responsible? I'm glad you don't hold office.
dismal failure
Sad state of affairs. Barry is a politician of the worst sort. His doublespeak does not hide his dismal failures. All who voted for this stinker should apologize to allof us who did not.