How many times did Republicans raise debt limit under Bush?

It was, I believe, 7 times. This was done without a lot of hoopla. The fiscal conservatives must have been asleep.

After the economy crashed and President Obama took office, they suddenly awakened and started yelling hysterically. The Republican leadership of course has no credibility on this issue.

Edit: The majority of the debt ceiling raises under Bush were done with a Republican Congress. Even after the Democrats took over the Republicans supported raising the debt ceiling.

I agree with many of the points on both sides that I see here. The answer provided VPOC is factual, but hard to accept if you are looking for reasons to blame nearly 20 years of neglect on whoever happens to be in power. Especially if he is from a different party. I too am not a Party affiliate on either side; I am with the US Army however and can offer my view from that perspective.

The majority of the funding that the GWB administration spent, with both parties approving, went to building infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile ours was crumbling due to neglect. It started under Clinton, who cut too much Gov spending in order to get the debt clock to run in the positive. It got worse under GWB with him focusing on two wars and tax breaks for the rich.

In addition, every expatriated US employee, whether working for Halliburton or any other civilian contractor over seas, pays zero taxes on their first $90,000.00 (2009 limit). With all of the money going to rebuild the Mid East, $90K tax exemption for every us contractor working there, and the tax cuts to the rich, we lost a considerable amount of tax revenues, that would otherwise have been spent to help this country.

The record profits seen by big businesses and their rich shareholders have NOT gone back into creating Jobs as planned. Naturally, it concerns me that we may have to rely on this Congress to take the power away from the rich, and use the revenues to create jobs, but the rich are clearly not doing enough for the rewards we are giving them.

The deregulation of the financial industry that started under Clinton (specifically Mortgage Rules) continued unchecked under GW, until the housing bubble burst at the end of the GW admin. Both parties are to blame for messing up the country. I feel sorry for Obama in the same way that I would have felt sorry for McCain if he had inheritted this mess.

Now WE as US citizens have to play catch up and invest in rebuilding our country, which was grossly neglected for 16 years under Clinton and GW. It should not surprise anyone that this will require a substantial monetary investment to make up for lost time, and reducing even a slight amount of the tax break that the rich are getting will go a long way to funding that.

It is time that we stop putting our parties before the people and recognize that if we don't make sacrifices on both sides, it will only get worse. By stalling for personal or political gains, a Congress person should be fired and replaced on the spot.

"Also under Bush, the economy did not go bad until the democrats were the majority in the house in 2006."

Really, cuz I remember standing on the floor of the stock exchange watching it die starting in the summer of '01. Bush did not a damn thing but cut taxes until the first bailout.

Our biggest problem with unemployment and job creation is the fact that we don't have the broad base of industry in our country anymore. That left in the wake of Reagan's deregulation, good call on that one Ron.

Hate to break the news to most of you but CONGRESS SPENDS THE MONEY, not Presidents.

Each of those idiots (whose mean salary is $9M/yr btw) needs to come to the table with $10B in spending cuts. Then maybe we'd take them seriously.

And for anyone that says we should tax corporations, please keep in mind that all they would do is pass those taxes onto the consumer. Their senior management certainly aren't going to take pay cuts - hello. It's not like corporations have some money tree in their back yard. So again, we'd just pay higher for their goods/services or they'd send the jobs overseas somewhere to cut costs.

Good cop, bad cop. My party is good for America, yours is bad. If it's obvious both are bad for America then why do they persist on taking the same sides whose best response on any problem is to point fingers? Replace EVERYBODY.

And we now have a debt limit approaching $14 trillion. Obama's already spend more money in 2 years than Bush did in 10.

Also under Bush, the economy did not go bad until the democrats were the majority in the house in 2006.

You need to broaden your horizons and get off of thinkprogress. That's a propaganda site for morons.

According to you :19.

Didn't Senator Obama call raising the debt ceiling a "failure of leadership"? What changed between then and now?

Bush raised it 7 times,Clinton 4 times and Obama 2 times so far.Whats your point.Most of that was done under the watchful eye of a Democratic controlled Congress.

So you're trying to justify new reckless spending, with old reckless spending? What happened to the Change?