Obama: "America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership."

[Little-Acorn]

That was then, when George W. Bush was raising the debt. (And Obama was right).

When can we expect him to raise a similar protest against a similar act... when now it is he himself raisng the debt far bayond anythinng Republicans ever dreamed?

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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/57493-senate-must-raise-debt-ceiling-above-12t

Senate must raise debt ceiling above $12T

By Walter Alarkon - 09/07/09 12:11 PM ET

The Senate must move legislation to raise the federal debt limit beyond $12.1 trillion by mid-October, a move viewed as necessary despite protests about the record levels of red ink.

The move will highlight the nation’s record debt, which has been central to Republican attacks against Democratic congressional leaders and President Barack Obama. The year’s deficit is expected to hit a record $1.6 trillion.

Democrats in control of Congress, including then-Sen. Obama (Ill.), blasted President George W. Bush for failing to contain spending when he oversaw increased deficits and raised the debt ceiling.

“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.

Now Obama is asking Congress to raise the debt ceiling, something lawmakers are almost certain to do despite misgivings about the federal debt. The ceiling already has been hiked three times in the past two years, and the House took action earlier this year to raise the ceiling to $13 trillion.

Congress has little choice. Failing to raise the cap could lead the nation to default in mid-October, when the debt is expected to exceed its limit, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said. In August, Geithner asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to increase the debt limit as soon as possible.

[Little-Acorn]

The entire speech. No, it's not copyrighted, it's the Congressional Record.

It's becoming more clear that Democrats support the sensible side of an issue, not because they believe in it, but because they feel they can use it to destroy an opponent.

Three short years later, they are doing what they smeared their opponent for doing, far more than the opponent ever dreamed of.

When Republicans tried to act like Democrat-lites and start spending wildly, their constituents voted them out of majorities in 2004 and 2008, as they deserved.

Would anybody like to guess how Obama and the Democrat congress really feel about multi-trillion-dollar deficit spending? (Hint: judge them by what they do, not what they say.)

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http://frwebgate6.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/TEXTgate.cgi?WAISdocID=424257273581+0+1+0&WAISaction=retrieve

Congressional Record: March 16, 2006 (Senate), Pages S2237-S2238

Mr. OBAMA. 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 5 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 5 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 veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.

And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.

Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America's priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans--a debt tax that Washington doesn't want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.

But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators Conrad and Feingold, the Senate continues to reject a return to the commonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending.

As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.

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 5 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

[[Page S2238]]

and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.

[cat slave]

Yes, GW was a free wheeling spending RHINO. I hardly think that justifies the
irresponsible policies of the current prez. He would get some respect if he said,
whoa, wait a minute, lets get a handle on some problems. That wont happen.
Hes a narcissistic dishonorable politician, well, community organizer, with a
huge agenda to change America as he stated. He spends more time flapping
his jaws to see himself on t.v. I guess, than tending to business, American
business and policies that are not causing destruction of our country.