“ El hecho de que estemos aquí hoy debatiendo el aumento del límite de la deuda de Estados Unidos es una muestra de la falta de liderazgo. Es un signo de que el gobierno Estadounidense no puede pagar sus propias cuentas…Washington está poniendo hoy el peso de la responsabilidad por [haber tomado] malas decisiones sobre la espalda de nuestros hijos y nietos. América tiene un problema de deuda y de falta de liderazgo. Los americanos se merecen algo mejor”

Obama 2006 vs. Obama January 2011 vs. Obama April 2011 on the Debt Ceiling - Political Punch

Obama 2006 vs. Obama January 2011 vs. Obama April 2011 on the Debt Ceiling


In March 2006, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., found the notion of raising the debt ceiling quite distasteful.

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” he said. “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. … 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 and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”

He did. It passed narrowly – by a vote of 52-48.

In January, I asked then-White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about those comments and that vote, given the president’s belief that the debt ceiling needs to be raised in May.

Gibbs said it was OK for then-Senator Obama to have cast that vote, since the outcome was guaranteed.

“Based on the outcome of that vote…the full faith and credit was not in doubt,” Gibbs said. Then-Sen. Obama used the vote “to make a point about needing to get serious about fiscal discipline….His vote was not necessarily needed on that.”

On Sunday, senior White House adviser David Plouffe revised that explanation.

“He believes that vote was a mistake,” Plouffe told Fox News Sunday.

And today White House press secretary Jay Carney said that “the president, as David Plouffe said yesterday, regrets that vote and thinks it was a mistake. He realizes now that raising the debt ceiling is so

important to the health of this economy and the global economy that it is not a vote that, even when you are protesting an administration's policies, you can play around with, and you need to take very seriously the need to raise the debt limit so that the full faith and credit of the United States government is maintained around the globe.”

Referencing Gibbs’s response three months ago, AP reporter Ben Feller asked Carney, “When did the president come to the realization this was a mistake?”

“Well, we asked him, and he made clear that he now believes it was a mistake,” Carney said. “And he understands that when you're in the legislature, when you're in the Senate, you want to make clear your position if you don't agree with the policies of the administration.”

-Jake Tapper

Don't raise the debt limit - reform entitlement spending

Don't raise the debt limit - reform entitlement spending

By Tim Pawlenty
Friday, January 21, 2011; 12:00 PM


Five years ago, a freshman senator made a case against allowing the federal government to go deeper into debt.

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure," he said. "It is a sign that the U.S. government can't pay its own bills."

That was Sen. Barack Obama in 2006, when he stridently voted against raising the federal debt limit. Things have changed a lot since then - for starters, our debt has increased by almost $6 trillion - but as the saying goes, sometimes where you stand depends on where you sit.

As president, Obama now embodies the "leadership failure" he once decried. After growing the debt by $3.4 trillion since moving into the Oval Office, his administration now says we absolutely must raise the debt ceiling or risk "catastrophic" economic consequences.

But the Obama administration is offering a false choice between more debt and default. The chaos that unfolded when Greece risked default last summer can and should be avoided here without raising the debt limit this spring. There is a better option available.

Contrary to what many people are saying, when the national debt approaches the limit set by Congress, as it could by March, it will not mean that the federal government suddenly won't be able to pay its bills. In fact, the government has enough projected cash flow and other resources to pay its outside debt obligations on time and in full for much longer - at least several more months - than the administration has been letting on.

Default on such debt need not occur if Congress passes and the president signs a law directing the Treasury to sequence our spending and prioritize the payment of interest and principal on the debt, as well as other critical budget items such as the military.

Such a measure would mark only the beginning of the debate over our national debt limit. Simply guaranteeing that the government will pay its outside debts would not solve our fiscal crisis. But it would properly frame our fiscal challenge - as a choice not between more debt and default, but between more debt and responsible spending reductions that would ensure we don't trigger a default. And by signaling to world markets that the United States is serious about its fiscal situation, it would buy us time to restructure entitlement spending and end the Ponzi scheme being run by the federal government.

Washington insiders act as if this is impossible, but ordinary citizens who manage their personal finances every day know better. Americans have credit cards, and many have run up too much debt on them. But when individuals reach their credit limit, the bank doesn't just raise it. Congress, unfortunately, does.

When I was elected governor in 2002, Minnesota faced a historic budget deficit. Recognizing that taxes were too high already, we used priority budgeting to cut spending. From 1960 to 2002, state spending in Minnesota had increased by an average of 21 percent every two years. During my two terms in office, we lowered the growth of spending to about 1.5 percent per year.

It wasn't easy. We had government shutdowns, special legislative sessions, numerous lawsuits and one of the longest transit strikes in American history. It was a battle, but we changed the state's spending pattern dramatically.

Setting aside the false threat of defaulting on our debt payments, the upcoming debate over raising the debt limit is a similar moment for Washington. The solutions are obvious: Entitlement programs need to be dramatically reformed. Given no other choice, I believe a bipartisan consensus could be created around ideas such as means-testing the cost-of-living increase in Social Security benefits, capping and block-granting Medicaid payments to states, and moving Medicare to a more efficient, pay-for-performance model.

Refusing to raise the debt limit would force hard choices about discretionary spending, too. Washington should do what we did to reduce spending in Minnesota: Set some priorities, and then cut funding for just about everything else. While national defense is obviously a top priority, even the Pentagon needs to pursue greater efficiencies by using priority budgeting to ensure that our military remains the most capable and effective in a dangerous world. Any savings that are achieved from belt-tightening at the Pentagon should be reinvested toward the most important defense needs, not redirected to pay for runaway domestic spending.

Last year's midterm elections demonstrated that the public is eager to cut the deficit. But every program has an interest group that will fight hard to defend it. We can succeed only if lawmakers are given no other choice. That's why it is so important that we use the debt limit debate to force hard choices now.

We may have followed Greece into democracy, but that does not mean we should or will follow the Greeks to the brink of bankruptcy.

Tim Pawlenty served two terms as governor of Minnesota, from 2003 to 2010. He is the author of "Courage to Stand: An American Story."

Iniciado por ALMIRANTE BLAS DE LEZO

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