President can’t have it both ways

“Raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure ... 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. America deserves better.”

These aren’t the words of some bug-eyed, knuckle-dragging, spittle-spewing tea party troglodyte objecting to President Obama’s urging that the federal debt ceiling be raised 16.7 percent — by $2.4 trillion, from $14.3 trillion to $16.7 trillion. Quite the contrary, these are the words of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), spoken in the Senate in March 2006, opposing President Bush’s request that the debt ceiling be raised 9.6 percent — by $781 billion, to $9 trillion. Along with every other Democratic senator (including Illinois’ Dick Durbin), he voted against the measure.

Jay Carney, the president’s press secretary, has said that the president now admits he was mistaken in 2006. With an economy creeping along at less than 2 percent growth, unemployment at over 9 percent, a depressed housing market, a weak dollar, record deficits and rock-bottom consumer confidence, it’s obvious that this isn’t the only mistake he (and his party) has made since coming to power in January 2009. It is, however, the only mistake that political necessity compels him to admit. In the final analysis, though, the basis of his two apparently conflicting positions on raising the debt ceiling is consistent — cynical, partisan opportunism.

Bob Foys

Inverness