Big Dogs Weblog

Democrats Flip-Flop On Raising The Debt Limit

by Big Dog on Oct 23, 2009 at 09:44 Political

When Republicans were in charge they spent like, well Democrats. They ran up huge deficits and asked for an increase in the debt limit (raising the debt ceiling) and that move was opposed by Democrats. Barack Obama was opposed to it when he said it burdened our children with our debt. He was absolutely correct when he said it.

“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren,” Obama said in a 2006 floor speech that preceded a Senate vote to extend the debt limit. “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.”

Obama later joined his Democratic colleagues in voting en bloc against raising the debt increase. The Hill

That was then and this is now. Like Obama’s stance on the war in Afghanistan, the “war of necessity” that must be won, which changed and on which he is now floundering, the issue of the debt ceiling is just as fluid.

Yes Republicans spent like there was no tomorrow and yet the Obama Administration has managed to outspend them. Obama’s deficit for this year will be 1.4 TRILLION dollars, nearly twice the deficit of Bush’s last year in office. Now there is an argument to be made that there is an overlap in administrations (though Congress was controlled by Democrats) but the bulk of the spending has come from Obama and his Democrats and the future spending is just as bad.

The Democrats are trying to use parlor tricks to hide the request to raise the debt limit. They are trying to add it to a Defense Authorization Bill. They are trying to hide their vote to raise the debt ceiling by claiming that they had to vote for the bill because it is a necessary one. Given that, why is the debt ceiling increase in it to begin with? Congress does this all the time. They add items that are unpopular to bills that must be passed so they can have cover when people get upset. “Why, I had to vote for it in order to save the three toed pygmy sloth from extinction. It was a choice of not voting to save the little fella or swallowing hard and voting for it while adding the other nasty things.”

Knowing they will face unyielding GOP attacks for voting to increase the eye-popping debt, Democrats are considering attaching a debt increase provision to a must-pass bill, possibly the Defense Department spending bill, according to Democratic and Republican sources. Politco

Their motives are presented as pure but the reality is that they know what they want. If it is so undesirable to vote for extraneous items in bills then they would not ADD them to the bills. They want to vote for the items but they want it to appear as if they had no choice.

These kind of tricks are used all the time. They have attempted to remove the increase in the health care bill with regard to payments to doctors who take Medicare by making it a separate item that adds directly to the deficit. This way they can claim the health care bill was deficit neutral (it is not and it never will be).

Senator Barack Obama correctly stated that raising the debt limit saddles our children with debt. He then voted against the increase (one can debate if that was party alliance or conviction but he voted against it). Now it is time for him to show he truly believed what he said when he was a Senator by vetoing any bill that increases the debt limit.

If he does not, it will show once again that all of his statements and positions have an expiration date.

Big Dog Salute to Gator Sports

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Tags: Congress, debt ceiling, Democrats, dishonesty, Obama, parlor tricks