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Obama on the Debt Ceiling in 2006 vs 2013

Raise 'Em Up

Supporters of President Obama continually try to rationalize his decisions on the basis of some philosophical and moral philosophy. In fact, it does seem clear to most rational thinkers that, in fact, the President chooses the most politically expedient position at the moment. Nothing makes this clearer than Obama’s all-over-the-lot positions on the debt ceiling.

CNS News released an excerpt” from President Obama’s speech given on September 18 at the Business Roundtable in D.C. During his discussion, Obama remarked,

“Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you’ve already racked up, Congress. It’s a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved.”

However a speech given in 2006 by then-Senator Obama on the occasion of raising the debt ceiling under President George Bush paints a completely different picture. Back then, Obama actually laments that that Federal spending has not been reduced, which he in turn blames for an increase in deficits, therefore resulting in more money borrowing and a need to raise the debt ceiling:

“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”

What else did Senator Obama say? He also described Bush’s increase of federal debt by $ 3.5 trillion over 5 years to be “reckless fiscal policies”, and a sign of “leadership failure”.

“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”

Yet in merely three years of Obama’s Administration, from 09/30/09 – 09/30/12 (the last year for which figures were available), the debt increased $ $4.1 Trillion, from $1,909,829,003,511.75 to $16,066,241,407,385.89. These numbers were taken from Treasurydirect.gov. Obama’s own fiscal policies have proven to be worse.

So because we are in so much more debt, we need to raise the debt ceiling yet again. And we find Obama at his recent speech rationalizing the need to raise the debt ceiling in order to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States for the future:

“And I have responsibilities at this point not just to the current generation but to future generations, and we’re not ‘going to set up a situation where the full faith and credit of the United States is put on the table every year or every year and a half, and we go through some sort of terrifying financial brinksmanship because of some ideological arguments that people are having about some particular issue of the day. We’re not going to do that.”

But what was did Obama think about his responsibilities to current and future generations and the full faith and credit of the United States back in 2006? As a Senator, Obama used that same argument against raising the debt ceiling
“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.”

It’s quite clear: What Obama said and thought as a Senator during the Bush administration in 2006 versus what Obama says and thinks as the President in 2013 regarding the very same topic, the debt ceiling, yields two very different sets of conclusions. When Obama argued against the debt ceiling as a Senator, we were at $8.5 Trillion in federal debt created in a span of 200+ years. A mere 7 years later, we have managed to double that number, with 5 of those 7 years under Obama’s watch. The explosive growth of federal debt under President Obama is gross fiduciary negligence.

The full text of Obama’s 2006 speech is here.

An interesting thing to note about Obama’s 2006 speech against the debt ceiling. The original text of the speech should be in the Senate archives online, but it was removed months ago after an NRO article drew attention to it in January 2013. Shortly after that article ran, the link to the speech came back as an “error”.

Unsurprisingly, the link has yet to be fixed as of this morning. When the link originially disappeared, the Heritage Foundation was able to get a copy of the text from the Government Printing Office (gpo.gov). They dug it up there because the online Senate file was scrubbed.

And after the NRO article ran, I reproduced it here in its entirety. It almost sounds…..conservative. Obama-the-President wouldn’t like that.

Geithner: Higher Taxes is an American Privilege


He really said it.

 

{I}f you don’t ask, you know, the most fortunate Americans to bear a slightly larger burden of the privilege of being an American…

This folks, is our Treasury Secretary. Of course, it’s not like Geithner is serious about reform. Remember his argument that the debt ceiling just needs to be extended? I took him to task for that. We still have no real desire to make the spending cuts that are so desperately needed, especially since the current plan is clearly to find more ways tax the rich.

Of course, we’ll have the debt ceiling argument regurgitated later this year as the limit will hit in the fall.

When the Budget Control Act of 2011 increased the debt ceiling last August, Congress, the administration, and outside analysts believed that this increase would allow federal borrowing under the limit well into 2013,” the center’s analysts wrote. “Due to unexpected circumstances … that belief appears increasingly likely to have been misguided.”

I’m sure Timmy will be a good American and do everything in his power to make sure that doesn’t happen until after the elections.

 

Debt Ceiling Consequences

 

As citizens have the capacity to invest, so do small businesses,  the backbone of our country. Yet the proposal to raise the debt ceiling will only continue the weaken our already fragile business climate. More economic uncertainty is looming and capital spending among businesses at a 35 year low according to the National Federation of Independent Businesses. While some business may spend, most will retain their cash until greater fiscal stability is realized —  instead of investing. Businesses are currently not able to count on our administration to get serious about deficit reduction.

When our country is being led by a President who insists on continued borrowing without fiscal restraint — such as a debt ceiling — then our country is in truly in deep financial trouble.  We heard in his spring speech about his proposed “triggers” to decrease spending and increase taxes if deficit targets are not met. This would merely incentivize the liberals to intentionally avoid the targets to force otherwise unpalatable tax increases. Of course, the best and easiest solution for lowering the deficit is to not allow any more debt.

Current administration plans to raise the debt ceiling without strict spending cuts only confirm the abrogation of their fiduciary responsibility in order to play politics for reelection. By refusing to reduce the deficit through spending restraint, entitlement reform and program cutting, I submit that in the coming months, Obama will proclaim the Republican efforts to reshape Medicare to be a ploy for funding continued tax cuts for the top 2% income earners. Instead of tackling our budget crisis to allow citizens and businesses the ability to spend and invest their way to back to prosperity, our President’s proposals and politicking tremendously paralyze our economic recovery effort. It is truly embarrassing to have a President who makes such economically incompetent statements.