Last year, a faction of Republican fiscal hawks
kept Congress from rubber-stamping a debt ceiling increase in the
summer. The Congress eventually did raise the debt ceiling though,
setting automatic reductions in spending growth that form the
spending portion of the fiscal cliff. Many of those fiscal hawks
have now been
ousted from committee seats influential in the budget process.
Two in particular, Michigan’s Justin Amash and Kansas’ Tim
Huelskamp, voted against Paul Ryan’s budget in their time on the
Budget Committee, now cut short. That budget passed committee
19-18, and was then passed by the Republican House. It set
something like
automatic debt ceiling increases for the next decade.

Now, the Obama Administration has proposed the president

take the power to raise the debt ceiling into his own hands.
Today the president
told business leaders that negotiating over raising the debt
ceiling next year, when it’s going to be hit again, “a href=
_warns_gop_against_debt_ceiling_fight_i_will_not_play_that_game.html”is
not a game that I will play.”

In 2006, Senator Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling,

saying:”The fact that we are here today to debate
raisingAmerica’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is
a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills.
It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance
from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal
policies.”

Leadership failure and reckless fiscal policies. Sounds
right.