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

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid vs. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Senate Minority Leader Reid March 7, 2006

Secretary Snow has asked us to increase the national debt ceiling by some $800 billion. And I am very concerned about this -- our country. War -- a war in Iraq, intractable, $2 billion a week. No energy independence. No health care. Education's in trouble. But that's what we've gotten with Republican leadership.

Senate Majority Leader Reid April 14, 2011

We don't have to attach anything. This is a debate. This debate can be separate to that. We don't have to have a lot of things attached to raising the debt ceiling. We can do that separately. And I would hop that all the proposals that have been talked about -- I know the president's proposal has nothing to do with attaching it to the debt ceiling. And I would hope the Gang of Six isn't talking bout attaching it to the debt ceiling. It would be a separate piece of legislation that we would take a look at.

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