Hypocrisy and the GOP: Increasing the Debt Limit

[dwer.livejournal.com]

So right now, the GOP is attempting to shove the US over the cliff of default by refusing to increase the debt limit without massive spending cuts.

Funny, they didn't seem to complain about such things before.

At the beginning of the Bush presidency, the United States debt limit was $5.95 trillion. Despite promises that he would pay off the debt in 10 years, Bush increased the debt to $9.815 trillion by the end of his term, with plenty of help from the four Republicans currently holding Congressional leadership positions: Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl. ThinkProgress compiled a breakdown of the five debt limit increases that took place during the Bush presidency and how the four Republican leaders voted:

June 2002: Congress approves a $450 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $6.4 trillion. McConnell, Boehner, and Cantor vote “yea”, Kyl votes “nay.”
May 2003: Congress approves a $900 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $7.384 trillion. All four approve.
November 2004: Congress approves an $800 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $8.1 trillion. All four approve.
March 2006: Congress approves a $781 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $8.965 trillion. All four approve.
September 2007: Congress approves an $850 billion increase, raising the debt limit to $9.815 trillion. All four approve.

Now, I suppose you can make an argument for not increasing the debt limit, although I'm unlikely to agree with you. However, doesn't it bother our conservative friends on this board that this is -clearly- an example of the GOP doing something simply to cause Obama to fail, rather than any actual principles they might allegedly have?

Without raising the debt limit, the US will start to default on debt. That will devalue the dollar, crush confidence in the US both within and outside the country, and therefore impedes our leadership in the world when we're still involved in two wars, have bases around the world, and are participating in more than one "peace-keeping" mission via the UN or NATO. Whether or not those are reasonable things for the US to be doing, we're -already- doing them, and it seems to me that defaulting in the middle of these activities won't be very productive. Will the US be able to sign and ratify treaties? Economic agreements? Will foreign companies continue to invest?

(specific data culled from Think Progress.)

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Republicans should explain why an economy with the most minimal regulation in the civilized world is tyranny but the largest expansion of the Executive Branch since the FDR Administration and warrantless wiretapping and other such practices of recent Republican Administrations aren't. Also why the Patriot Act was justifiable after 9/11 but not after the Murrah Bombing. Does the GOP not care about terrorism when people in the USA do it to other people in the USA?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

The United States hasn't been the least regulated country for a couple of decades now.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Er, yes, it is very much still the least regulated country in the civilized world. Sorry, you fail geopolitics forever.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Um, no I have facts to back my claim up but I want to see your source first since you made the claim that the US is the least regulated country in the civilized world, prove it or admit you are speaking out your ass based on your own personal prejudice.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting to see these facts, as opposed to mere assertions for the Hell of it. My comment derives from such measures as the US Welfare state being the most austere in the entire First World, and the string of US de-regulation that proceeded during the last 8 years of Republican misadministration. What's yours?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

US is the 4th most overregulated...

http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-the-worlds-most-and-least-over-regulated-nations/20110128.htm


BY 2002 the European average for regulation had equaled the US's...

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/1/52/46329580.pdf

Us ranks 15th in overall regulation, 104th in credit market regulation, 4th in labor market regulation, and 26th in Business regulation (see page 11)...

http://www.cato.org/pubs/efw/efw2010/EFW2010-chapter1.pdf


US is ranked 8th in economic freedom...

http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2010/pdf/sr0082.pdf


Now, your turn since you have nothing as of right now. The measurement of the US welfare state is not in the slightest related to the level of Regulation in the US and there is no actual evidence beyond simple assertions that the overall level of regulation has ever actually decreased in the US. Sure, you can point to a specific act of deregulation and say "See Deregulation" but unless you are looking at the whole regulatory picture you cannot say whether regulation has increased or decreased and by all measurements regulatory burdens have been decreasing everywhere in the first world EXCEPT the US where it has been increasing.

Oh yeah, and the final nail in the coffin for your assertion that the US is the least regulated place in the world can be summed up in a single word...

Singapore.