Thanks to Barbara Anderson for reminding us what our now president thoughts were on the debt raising back in 2006.  If you believe raising our debt limit, with the promise to cut back spending in the future, is the right way to go, you must surely agree that our life long politicians who got us into this mess are now willing and able to get the country out of it?  I would have more faith in this actually happening only if ALL Americans paid taxes and we were not a country of more takers than givers.  So if the Republicans cave is not the question, the question is are you still going to believe that a politician is going to make a decision best for the country or best for himself!!!    

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure ... a sign that the U.S. government can't pay its own bills ... 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. ... 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. ...

Over the past five years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion ... That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. ...

This year, the federal government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we'll spend on Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program ... on education, homeland security, transportation and veterans benefits combined.

And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and states of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.

Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America's priorities.

— Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., floor speech on public debt, March 16, 2006