.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Born at the Crest of the Empire

Thursday, March 16, 2006

The party of fiscal sanity

Under Reagan/Bush the national debt exploded. Under Clinton, balanced budgets. Under Bush the lesser, the national debt is exploding. In five years, the Bush administration has increased the debt limit by $3 trillion, roughly 50%.

The Senate voted Thursday to allow the national debt to swell to nearly $9 trillion, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. Treasury notes.

The bill passed by a 52-48 vote. The increase to $9 trillion represents about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The bill now goes to President Bush for his signature.


I haven't seen the individual votes yet on the Congressvotes database(I'll link when I do,) but once the Dems get a list of Republicans who voted on the record for more National Debt, it should be hung around their necks in every race in the country. And I would argue this, but the defense that it's 30 %....?

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Bush's tax cuts account for just 30 percent of the debt limit increases required during his presidency.

posted by mikevotes at 11:29 AM

4 Comments:

  • So if the government had defaulted, would we all have to pay up?

    Sounds to me like the vote broke down on party lines, or pretty close to. Guess the Dems were pretty sure the Republican's would raise the ceiling, as a "no" vote would have had disasterous fiscal consequences.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:42 PM  

  • Almost completely on party lines. 3 Repubs voted with the dems against.

    And, yes, I know the bill had to be passed, but as with everything else, it didn't have to be passed with a blank check to the pres. I don't know if they propsosed it, but a smart alternative dem bill would've been the ceiling raise with spending cuts or pullbacks on the tax increases.

    Some sort of flick on the nose to the big spending administration.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 3:19 PM  

  • In order for the Democrats to use the debt increase they would have to run as as opposition party. Bush has thrown plenty of bones that they could use (incompetence, criminal activity, etc.) but they won't even stand behind a measure to censure Bush from their own party.

    By Blogger Lew Scannon, at 5:36 PM  

  • I'm hoping maybe they fear that going now would be to early and they would lose momentum before the midterms. That's what I tell myself, although I'm not sure I believe it.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 5:46 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home