Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad is losing patience with arguments for raising the debt ceiling.
“The question is: Are we staying on this course to keep running up the debt, debt on top of debt, increasingly financed by foreigners, or are we going to change course?” he asked.
But Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley says there is no alternative, with lawmakers facing “a choice between breaking the law by exceeding the statutory debt limit or, on the other hand, breaking faith with the public by defaulting on our debt.”
That was the state of play in 2006, when George W. Bush wanted to lift the debt ceiling from $8.2 trillion to $9 trillion and the Democrats were ripping his handling of the economy. In fact, every Senate Democrat—including Barack Obama and Joe Biden—voted against boosting the debt ceiling, while all but two Senate Republicans voted in favor. It was Bush’s fourth debt-ceiling hike in five years, for a total of $3 trillion.
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