Then & Now: The changing rhetoric in the debt-limit debate

Sen. Barack Obama vs. President Obama

Sen. Obama March 16, 2006

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 de- pend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

President Obama April 14, 2011

When you’re a Senator, traditionally what’s happened is this is always a lousy vote.  Nobody likes to be tagged as having increased the debt limit for the United States by a trillion dollars… As President, you start realizing, "You know what?  We-- we can’t play around with this stuff.  This is the full faith in credit of the United States."  And so that was just a example of a new Senator, you know, making what is a political vote as opposed to doing what was important for the country.  And I’m the first one to acknowledge it.

From the: Oval Office | Treasury
Democrats: Obama | Reid | Rangel
Republicans: Grassley | Pence