Senator Barack Obama, March, 2006:

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” he said. “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 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 and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”

Senator Obama was right. Too bad, he’s now the President and appears to have not meant a word of that statement above. Too bad for all of us. President Obama has tried to portray himself as the adult in this debt ceiling debate, but when it comes to taking care of our nation’s fiscal well being his administration has made a drunk teenager in love look responsible and mature. Just months ago he released a budget so unserious that his own party and the entire Senate disowned it 97-0. He came into office to lead a country facing massive debt and managed to make the situation even worse as our debt has sky rocketed in the past 3 years. He not only has failed to do anything to rectify our coming entitlement crisis, he has actually made them even worse by passing a new health care entitlement and vilifying anyone who is willing to address Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, all of which are facing major funding shortages.  Barack Obama is many things, a good leader, he is not.

Tags: debt, Debt ceiling, deficit, discretionary spending, entitlement spending, leadership, medicare, Obama