Debt Ceiling Has Often Been a Subject of Political Deals

President Obama and Democrats in Congress have often argued that the debt ceiling is not subject for debate.

Yet the Wall Street Journal referenced a number of times in which the vote to raise the borrowing authority of the federal government met with fractious disagreements between the two parties.

The House of Representatives even repealed the "Gephardt Rule" which permitted the US Senate to ratify the raising of the debt ceiling by unanimous consent.

In 1993, Dems alone voted to raise the debt ceiling. No GOP help  at all.


In 2003, Reps in House alone raised the Debt ceiling, with a little help from the Dems in the US Senate.

During the last two years of the Bush 43 Presidency, Dems in the House vote to raise the ceiling, without any GOP support, and about half the Dems and half the Reps voted in the US Senate in concurrence.

Defaulting on debt is a terrible outcome.

No nation should be deadbeat on its debts.

Yet for a nation to continue borrowing instead of cutting costs, ending useless programs, and scaling back the proper scope of the government are necessary moves.

One AP report shared that if Congress did not raise the debt ceiling, then Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew would have to pay the nation's bills with the country's reserves and incoming revenues only.

Isn't that what our leaders in the federal government are supposed to do?

Democrats have railed against raising the debt ceiling when a Republican was President.

US Senator Obama resisted, voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2006.

He was right then, and he is wrong now to demand more borrowing authority in the face of entitlements gone mad like Obamacare and the shrinking funding for Social Security and Medicare, and Medicaid, and so on.

Washington politicians have danced about the debt ceiling before.

It's time for leaders to stop extending borrowing authority and start expanding comprehensive entitlement reforms, budget cuts, program reductions, and an all-around return of federal power beyond the Constitution to the states and the people.