Keep this in mind as The One and his Congressional allies use all kinds of unpleasant words to describe Republicans who will vote against raising the debt ceiling:
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. … 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.
That was Obama justifying his vote against an increase in 2006, and it’s soundbite gold.
The fact we have to raise the debt limit? It’s “a sign of leadership failure”.
It’s a “sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries” to fund the government’s “reckless fiscal policies”.
The debt limit increase “weakens us domestically and internationally”.
All according to a man who will now demand Republicans vote to increase the debt limit lest they throw the country into crisis. All according to the leader of a party which will now attack any Republican who even hints at voting against a debt limit increase.
21. January 2011 at 11:34 am
It was good to remind people what Obama said in 2006. I think he was right, and his words of wisdom should be the concentrated content of discussion and debate on the issue. (Too often, persons omit any reference to what he said in 2006, or point out his flip flop on the subject in order to embarrass him and to label him a hypocrite.)
If the debt of 9 trillion shows a failure of leadership, the debt of 14 trillion shows a much greater failure of leadership. If the buck stops here at 9 trillion, it is more important than ever that it stops here now. If the American people deserved better than to have the debt raised when it was 9 trillion, they deserve very much better now. In short, the reasons to vote no to an increase in the debt ceiling are more pertinent, and more compelling, than ever before.
It does not seem to be as much a case of playing chicken with this issure, as much as it is a case of merely watching the chickens, one by one, as they come home to roost. The higher the debt ceiling, the more chickens will come home to roost.