Hoping to avoid facing the issue in the year of the mid-term elections, Democrats are moving to quietly raising the federal debt ceiling by about $1.8 trillion before New Year’s. It’s a new record for national debt.

Reports The Politico:

“We’ve incurred this debt. We have to pay our bills,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told POLITICO Wednesday. And the Maryland Democrat confirmed that the anticipated increase could be as high as $1.8 trillion — nearly twice what had been assumed in last spring’s budget resolution for the 2010 fiscal year.

Who is this “we”, Steny? You racked up debt on our credit cards to finance liberal pet projects, bail out your union backers, and expand entitlements. All while blasting Republicans for creating a deficit over eight years that was just a fraction of the one your party’s leadership has in the past 11 months.

Whenever we do hear about fiscal responsibility from Democrats, it’s in the form of justifying cuts to national defense and other explicit constitutional obligations. They’ll rack up trillions for socialized healthcare and bailouts, but hesitate to spend tens of billions to win wars and protect our allies from incoming Iranian missiles.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey, who is pursuing job-related measures he would also like to add, insisted that the debt issue is a “leadership call” alone. But the Wisconsin Democrat showed no sign of opposition to the strategy outlined by Hoyer.

“It is December. We don’t really have a choice,” Obey told POLITICO. “The bill’s already been run up; the credit card has already been used. When you get the bill in the mail you need to pay it.”

Here’s a wild concept: Stop running up the balance on our national credit card. Start cutting non-essential spending and stop increasing appropriations for, frankly, unconstitutional measures. Pay off the credit card without putting more on it.

But no, that’s a foreign concept to Washington. Only we peons need to watch our bank accounts, cut back on debt spending, and balance our household budgets. Congress can just increase its credit limit whenever it’s run out of our money.