This Monday, White House press secretary Jay Carney claimed that “the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling would be Armageddon-like in terms of the economy.”
Back in 2006, however, then-Sen. Obama had a different take on the consequences of raising the debt limit:
When questioned at the White House daily briefing Monday about then-Sen. Obama’s subsequent 2006 vote for financial Armageddon, Carney said that then-Sen. Obama made a “mistake.”
Since the last debt ceiling fight in 1995-1996, when Congress raised the debt ceiling to $5.5 trillion, the debt limit has been raised 11 times. Many of those increases were coupled with other must pass legislation, including the Fannie and Freddie bailouts (+$800 billion), TARP (+$700 billion), and Obama’s stimulus (+$789 billion).
In addition to the debt limit hike included in his stimulus plan, President Obama signed a stand alone $290 billion debt limit increase in December 2009 and a $1.4 trillion increase in February 2010. The 2010 increase was not a “clean” increase either. It also included a statutory Pay-As-You-Go procedure.
You can find the 2006 stand alone debt ceiling roll call vote here. Every Democratic serving in the Senate that day voted for economic Armageddon, including: President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
