Greg welcomes guests Jesse Joyce and Carrie Keagan. Plus, TV's Andy Levy joins the panel.
Obama's big debt limit deception
On Wednesday, speaking to the Business Roundtable, Obama said:
"You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt being used to extort a president or a governing party and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt."
This is just plain false, and he knows it. That he would say something so factually false in a prepared text is very worrisome.
First of all, issues such as Obamacare don't have "nothing to do with the budget" and the idea that it is unusual for Congress to bring them into the debt ceiling debate is absurd. Far from having "nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt," Obamacare is a major part of the budget, and it is now projected to cost twice what the president promised.
The president's historical claim is completely wrong, as well. Let's set the record straight.
Debt ceilings have been used since President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s to enable conservatives to put limits on government spending.
The concept of using the debt ceiling as a vehicle to force negotiations really took off under President Richard Nixon in the early 1970s.
Under President Ronald Reagan, one of the most important changes in spending, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, was attached to a debt ceiling provision.
Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton also signed debt limit increases tied to spending agreements. When we reached a deal to balance the budget 1997, it included a debt limit increase.
As Speaker John Boehner pointed out, "In fact, every major effort to deal with the deficit over the past 30 years has been tied to the debt limit."
Of course, Obama himself has signed a debt ceiling increase with amendments attached to it.
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