Politics as usual.

“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 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. … 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.”

That was then Senator Obama, speaking before the Senate in 2006.  When Obama took office, the national debt was at $6.31 trillion.  It is now at $14.3 trillion.  That equals $46,000 owed per US citizen.  Obama later stated he regrets saying that and he only did it for political reasons.  Harry Reid did the same thing, only to back off recently citing political grandstanding as well.  How can we trust these leaders government when they always say what is politically expedient at the time?  I ask rhetorically.

UPDATE at 11:10pm EST

It was a good move for John Boehner to answer President Obama tonight and address the American people directly.  Although, much of this was politics as usual and grandstanding, the country does need to make a decision on how they are going to handle this situation at least in the short term.  We can not afford more of the same with agreeing to increases in the debt limit with spending cuts to be discussed later.  The Cut Cap and Balance plan deserves greater consideration, and Reid should be embarrassed by his rhetoric last week.

Making a Constitutional Amendment making our government balance our budget seems to be our only hope to get them to do so.  Of course, the Congressional Budget Act already requires Congress pass a budget by April 15th every year, and that has been ignored under the Obama watch already.  The only way this is going to get fixed is for the general public to play close attention and exert the pressure needed in order to make it happen.