Boehner: Tax hikes are “off the table”

Now, I commend the Democrats in this body for their candor. The Democrats and President Obama have been very explicit that it is their intention to raise the debt ceiling and to do so with no conditions whatsoever, just to keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing money without any structural reforms to fix the problems. That is an intellectually consistent position.

Um, no, it’s not an intellectually consistent position. Democrats won in 2006 and 2008 in large part because they pretended to be, and promised to be, fiscal conservatives. That was a BIG LIE.

Let’s go back to what the Democrats put in writing in 2006, when they thought then-current deficits (like $248 Billion in FY 2006) were a NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE…

Over the past decade, the Republican controlled Congress took our nation in the wrong direction. Too many Americans are paying a heavy price for those wrong choices: record costs for energy, health care and education; jobs shipped overseas; and budgets that heap record debt on our children. For millions, the middle-class dream has been replaced by a middle-class squeeze…

Democrats are proposing a New Direction for America…

With integrity, civility and fiscal discipline, our New Direction for America will use commonsense principles to address the aspirations and fulfill the hopes and dreams of all Americans. That is our promise to the American people….

Our federal budget should be a statement of our national values. One of those values is responsibility. Democrats are committed to ending years of irresponsible budget policies that have produced historic deficits. Instead of piling trillions of dollars of debt onto our children and grandchildren, we will restore “Pay As You Go” budget discipline.

Budget discipline has been abandoned by the Bush Administration and its Republican congressional majorities. Congress under Republican control has turned a projected $5.6 trillion 10-year surplus at the end of the Clinton years into a nearly $3 trillion deficit– including the four worst deficits in the history of America. The nation’s debt ceiling has been raised four times in just five years to more than $8.9 trillion. Nearly half of our nation’s record debt is owned by foreign countries including China and Japan. Without a return to fiscal discipline, the foreign countries that make our computers, our clothing and our toys will soon be making our foreign policy. Deficit spending is not just a fiscal problem – it’s a national security issue as well.

Our New Direction is committed to “Pay As You Go” budgeting – no more deficit spending.

Pelosi promised no more deficit spending. Pelosi promised that both in writing (above) and live on C-SPAN:

After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: pay-as-you-go, no new deficit spending. Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.

- New Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 01/04/2007

In 2008, Obama made deficit spending a campaign issue:

“The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents – #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.”

- Barack Obama July 3, 2008

Republicans held majority control (holding 2+ out of 3 of the House, Senate, and Presidency) from January 3, 1995 to January 2, 2007 and were majority responsible for the FY 1996 to FY 2007 budgets. Over those 12 continuous years of Republican majority control, the total national debt increased from $4.974 Trillion to $9.008 Trillion, an increase of $4.034 Trillion over 12 years, for an average of $0.336 Trillion new debt per year.

The Democrats have held majority control (holding 2+ out of 3 of the House, Senate, and Presidency) since January 3, 2007, and are majority responsible for the FY 2008 to FY 2013 budgets (and have failed to pass a budget since FY 2009).

On April 30, 2013, after 5 and 2/3 Fiscal Years of Democrat majority control, the total national debt was $16.829 Trillion.

In 5 2/3 years, Democrat majorities have added more than $7.82 Trillion to the national debt, an average of $1.380 Trillion per year.

Obama said adding $4 Trillion in debt over 8 years (really over 12 years) was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic”.

Yet Obama (first as a Senator in the Democratic majority, and then as pResident), has added over $7.82 Trillion in 5 and 2/3 years.

Republican majorities added an average of $0.336 Trillion new debt per year for 12 years.

Democrat majorities have been adding an average of $1.380 Trillion new debt per year for the last 6 Fiscal Years, all after Pelosi promised, in writing and from the Speaker’s rostrum on C-SPAN, “no more deficit spending”.

Democrats now claim that we don’t have a debt problem. LIARS.

In their view,
+$5 Trillion = $9 Trillion: BAD (when it was Bush and Republicans), but
+$7.8 Trillion = $16.8 Trillion: GOOD (when it was themselves doing it).

In their view,
$0.336 Trillion new debt per year: BAD (when it was Bush and Republicans), but
$1.380 Trillion new debt per year: GOOD (when it was themselves doing it).

Pelosi promised “fiscal discipline” and “no more deficit spending”, but then added more new debt than any other House Speaker in history.

Democrats promised “fiscal discipline” and “no more deficit spending”, but then added new debt at OVER FOUR TIMES THE RATE of the Republicans they criticized.

The Democrats are such shameless, boldfaced LIARS that it is despicable.

It is a big mistake for Senator Cruz to say that the Democrats have “an intellectually consistent position”.

ITguy on May 22, 2013 at 9:48 PM