Obama offers quote of the year on the debt ceiling vote
By Dustin Hurst / October 10, 2013 / 264 Comments
By Dustin Hurst | Watchdog.org
President Barack Obama just delivered what might be the quote of the year.
As Congress continues to butt heads over Obamacare funding and the looming debt ceiling vote, the president’s critics continually knock him for voting against a debt limit hike in 2006 when he was a member of the U.S. Senate.
On Thursday, the president offered a simple explanation.
“Nothing has changed,” Obama told WFLA in an interview. “I voted against a debt ceiling increase at the time because I had some concerns about what President (George W.) Bush was doing.”
Really.
Obama’s concerns might have evolved over time, though. During his 2006 floor speech against the increase, he delivered a quote that circulates widely through social media and email chains.
Here it is:
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 US Government cannot 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.
Obama had repeatedly called on Congress to raise the nation’s debt limit without strings attached, but Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, proposed Thursday increasing the debt limit only if the president would sit down to negotiate re-opening the government.
Contact: Dustin@Watchdog.org
http://watchdog.org/110242/obama-the-debt-ceiling-vote/
