As we begin to debate whether Congress will a) raise the debt ceiling, then continue to argue and negotiate over the budget for 2012 and beyond, or b) not raise the debt ceiling, thereby ultimately throwing the entire global economy into crisis, President Obama was bound to get asked about the fact that he himself voted against raising the limit as a senator in 2006. Here's what he said:
I think that it's important to understand the vantage point of a Senator versus the vantage point of a…President. When you're a Senator, traditionally what's happened is this is always a lousy vote. Nobody likes to be tagged as having increased the debt limit for the United States by a trillion dollars… As President, you start realizing, "You know what? We-- we can't play around with this stuff. This is the full faith in credit of the United States." And so that was just a example of a new Senator, you know, making what is a political vote as opposed to doing what was important for the country. And I'm the first one to acknowledge it.
I guess you can give him points for admitting to having done something less than heroic in the past, something most politicians avoid. But the truth is that what's terribly irresponsible isn't any particular senator or congressmember voting against raising the ceiling, it's the entire caucus of one party threatening to engineer the defeat of the bill to raise the ceiling. The two are very different.
The debt ceiling has always been an occasion for protest votes. And that's really not a problem. When Obama voted against raising the ceiling, he knew his vote wouldn't make a difference, because the bill was going to pass. That's the whole point of protest votes: they allow you to make a statement without affecting the outcome. And this time around, I wouldn't criticize any Republican in the Senate for voting no. Democrats have a majority in that body, and as long as the Republicans don't filibuster, the Democratic votes will be enough to pass it. So Republican senators should go ahead and vote against it if they'd like to register their discontent.
The House, however, is a different story. There, Republicans can actually defeat the bill and stop the ceiling from being raised. So the question isn't whether any particular House Republican will vote no; it's whether John Boehner will make sure enough of his caucus votes no to defeat the bill. If he does that, he and the Republicans who join him will be doing something extraordinarily destructive. But if he makes sure that just enough Republicans vote yes to join with Democrats and pass the bill, then those Republicans who want to should go ahead and protest.
