Barack H. Obama demands that Congress raise the debt ceiling. Funny—as a Senator, he demanded that Congress leave it where it was.

Identify the speaker

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt ceiling 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…the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion…

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.

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So, who gave this fiscally conservative speech?

Surprise!! It was Senator Barack Obama, speaking on the public debt from the senate floor, March 16, 2006.

Obama then and now on the debt ceiling

Barack H. Obama, the man now holding office as President of the United States.

Yes, in March of 2006 Obama decried Bush increasing the debt $3.5T over the previous five years. And, he predicted if we continued on Bush’s reckless path, would spend another $3.5T by 2011 – the next five years.

He was against raising the debt ceiling in 2006. So, what’s his record been since assuming office as president?

• In January, 2009 the US debt was $10.6T. (It hadn’t increased at the rate he had predicted)
• By June, 2011 it had become $14.3T.

When Bush left office the debt ceiling was $10.6T. In 2 ½ years it’s gone up $3.7T. And to quote that fiscal conservative from 2006, “that’s trillion with a ‘T.’” So, that’s twice the increase in half the time Obama predicted it would be under Bush. Just sayin’.

And now Obama wants to raise it another $2.7T. That’s an increase in the ceiling of $6.4T in just 2 ½ years. Ceiling increases would be 60.4% of the entire debt when he took office. Wow!!!

His answer to our fiscal problems: divide the country with class warfare. Tax the “rich”; it’s only right they pay their “fair share.” Yup, turn American against American so he can spend, spend, spend.

A previous President’s perspective

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States. Portrait: Alexander Gardiner.

Obama is fond of quoting Abraham Lincoln, even though he was a Republican. Here is one of Lincoln’s quotes you won’t get from Obama:

 You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. (Emphasis mine)

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.

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You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

Ask yourself: what great improvements have we seen since progressives began spending umpteen Trillions of your tax dollars to improve education, poverty, transportation, infrastructure, whatever?

I think I know what your answer would be.

Where is the great concentration of people who have grown wealthy and have power over each and every American?

It’s not Wall Street. Not energy companies. Not insurance companies. And certainly not small business owners.

No, those people are all in one place – Washington, DC. And they continue to spend us into oblivion.

Featured image: the classic Weimar-era illustration of wheeling a barrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread.

Related:

• Sophistry and rebuttal
• Wheeling and dealing
• Postures and pretense
• Breakdown and bluster
• Scares and spending
• Sound and fury
• Gang of six
• Cut cap balance vote set
• Questions for Mr. Obama
• Warnings and postures
• Misconception and mush
• Cowardice and confusion
• Theater and outrage
• Deal falling through
• Day of reckoning
• Talks break down
• The media battle
• Battle lines
• Debt ceiling reached; sky does not fall
• Contradictory warnings
• Weimar redux?

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