September 8, 2009

A Blast from the Past - the Statutory Limit on Public Debit

From the Congressional Record, The United States Senate, Mar 16, 2006:
INCREASING THE STATUTORY LIMIT ON THE PUBLIC DEBT
And some excerpts from one Senator's comments:
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.
And:
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.
And:
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.
This Senator was pretty adamant about keeping the debt as low as possible and was very annoyed that it was going above one Trillion. Well, Congress is now talking about raising the limit to Twelve Trillion and Obama is strangely quiet. This in a span of only three years... Major hat tip to Moonbattery for the link. Posted by DaveH at September 8, 2009 9:30 PM