Debt regret

I’ll make this post pithy. It’s pretty obvious where I, as a fiscal conservative, proponent of free-market economic solutions, and limited federal government injection into every corner of our lives, stand on the current debate about raising the debt ceiling. Let me just quote a prominent national leader on the subject. Take a guess as to its author.

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’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 . . . Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, 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.

By the way, my representative in Congress, Jim Jordan, more than held his own this morning on Fox News Sunday against one of the more obnoxious Democrats out there. I am not at all certain that a Balanced Budget Amendment is the key to solving our fiscal problems (a budget with bloated spending and equally bloated taxes is balanced by definition but unacceptable!), but the common sense package Jim and his colleagues have proposed blow away anything else being proposed inside the Beltway.

Oh, yeah. The sage quoted above? Senator Barack Obama, March 20, 2006.