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A Brief History of Debt Limit Votes in the House
May 20, 2011 - by Donny Shaw
We already know that the House Republicans support increasing the debt limit. All but four of them recently voted in favor of a budget blueprint that calls for adding $9 trillion to the debt subject to limit over the next decade. Yet somehow they have convinced Obama and the Democrats that they have to get something in return, like spending cuts that make tax increases less likely, in exchange for actually voting for the debt limit increase they’ve already endorsed.
Raising the debt limit is never popular, but both parties do it with a fair amount of regularity. As Rep. Michael Simpson [R, ID-2] noted last year, raising the debt limit is “the burden of the majority.” No matter which party is in power, the majority party has always been responsible for calling up a debt limit vote as the federal government gets close to borrowing more money to execute the laws than Congress has given them statutory authority to, and whipping their membership to get it passed. This year, however, the Republicans are bucking that trend. They seem to have convinced the Democrats that the government should either default on their obligations, or the debt limit increase should include hundreds of billions in spending cuts and preserve the low Bush-era tax rates, and that the Democrats should still provide a majority of the votes to pass it.
As I did for the Senate, below is a chart I put together using data from the Office of Management and Budget (caution, .xls file) showing all of the debt increase votes going back to 1997, what level they raised the limit to, and how many Republicans in the Senate voted for it.
| Bill Containing Debt Ceiling Increase | New Debt Ceiling Level Enacted | Number of Republicans in House Voting “Yes” | Party Controlling House/President |
|---|---|---|---|
| 111-H.J.Res.45 – Increasing the statutory limit on the public debt (debt portion deemed passed in the rule, ) | $14,294,000,000,000 | 0 | Democrats/Obama |
| 111-H.R.4314 – To permit continued financing of Government operations (2009) | $12,394,000,000,000 | 0 | Democrats/Obama |
| 111-H.R.1 – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka TARP)(2009) | $12,104,000,000,000 | 0 | Democrats/Obama |
| 110-H.R.1424 – Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008) | $11,315,000,000,000 | 91 | Democrats/Bush |
| 110-H.R.3221 – Housing and Recovery Act (2008) | $10,615,000,000,000 | 45 | Democrats/Bush |
| 110-H.J.Res.43 – Increasing the statutory limit on the public debt (2007) (deemed passed in the budget resolution, S.Con.Res.21 | $9,815,000,000,000 | 0 | Democrats/Bush |
| 109-H.J.Res.47 – Debt limit increase resolution (2006) (deemed passed in the budget resolution, H.Con.Res.95) | $8,965,000,000,000 | 214 | Republicans/Bush |
| 108-S.2986 – A bill to Amend Title 31 of U.S. Code to increase the public debt limit (2004) | $8,184,000,000,000 | 206 | Republicans/Bush |
| 108-H.J.Res.51 – Debt limit increase resolution (2003) (deemed passed in the budget resolution, H.Con.Res.95 ) | $7,384,000,000,000 | 214 | Republicans/Bush |
| 107-S.2578 – Debt limit bill (2002) | $6,400,000,000,000 | 211 | Republicans/Bush |
| 105-H.R.2015 – Balanced Budget Act of 1997 | $5,950,000,000,000 | 193 | Republicans/Bush |
Whether you support or oppose the policies Republicans want to tack onto this, it’s clear that they’re on the verge of scoring a huge, historically anomalous, victory here. The Tea Party crowd has added a hard-line ideological edge to the Republican caucus, and the Democrats are clearly afraid. They’ve convinced the Democrats that this debt limit vote is different from all others. Rather than following the trend and taking a responsible, yet unpopular, vote, the Republicans are positioned to turn this into a big win — both policy-wise and politically.
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Displaying 31-60 of 68 total comments.
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well, ok, that last post didn’t really encompass the point. Yes, we all have to follow FED laws, but states are still free to make their own laws as long as it isn’t “contradictory to the constitution”. And it’s up to the Judicial Branch to figure out what is and is not contradictory. There, I think that cleaned it up a bit.
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oh, haha, that is what you said. i had to re-read that one.
A 1% change represents $140 billion dollars in 2010 dollars, so adjusted over 1953 though 2010 we have a range difference of almost $1.2 trillion 2010 dollars or about 2/3 of the current deficit. Again that is huge.
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Personally, I prefer a strict construction of the Constitution, seeing as how to give the document a loose construction would, as Jefferson had put it , allow Congress and the FED
The Preamble to the Bill of Rights states
(cont’d)
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Sometimes people refer to the instance of general welfare in the preamble when they say “general welfare clause”. You’re right, it’s also mentioned in Article I, Section 8:
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; …”
Common defense, general welfare, etc. are reasons for the powers listed immediately after this statement, and are certainly not powers themselves. All of the specific powers that follow could be absorbed into either of these reasons, so why enumerate them at all if such general power exists? Interestingly, this would also be the only ‘power’ listed without ‘To’ with a capital ‘T’ (including ‘To lay and collect taxes’). Even the form of the document argues against your claim.
As to your other statement, I challenge you to find a single human activity that doesn’t peripherally affect interstate commerce in some way.
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Arguing about the placement of the word to?, I suggest looking at the start of the sentence for capitalization,
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;”
Unlike the following clauses which start with the word “To” the first one starts with the word “The”.
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“WOW, THANK YOU so much for saying that! It’s amazing how great a combination “Ludwig Von Mises” and “liberty” make”
Between the mans theories dependence on racial inequality(put his name and stormfront into google, warning not work safe), And general dependence on disproven Austrian economic theory It is a wonder anyone would think that.
This is reaffirmed in the Constitution, where the founding fathers “instituted a new government, laying it’s foundation on the principles of equality and the citizen’s unalienable rights” (paraphrased from the Declaration of Independence)
Also, the 9th Amendment states:
Our rights, our power, exist without government, not because of it. Among these are Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness
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You’re missing my point about structure. Say there are five enumerated powers in an imaginary Section 8:
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, etc., to accomplish our purported aims of general welfare, defense, etc.;
To carry into effect power A;
To carry into effect power B;
To carry into effect power C;
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, etc.”
This is structurally equivalent to the real Article I Section 8. Notice punctuation and capitalization, especially ‘Power To’ and subsequent instances of ‘To’. Notice that ‘to accomplish our…’ is a dependent clause, which taken in isolation makes no sense. The overall structure was chosen precisely to introduce and define a list of things; do you really expect us to believe that the founders (most of which were attorneys and probably ridiculously precise) carefully laid out the enumerated powers one-by-one with the sole exception of the first two?
“put his name and stormfront into google”
Guilt by association? Vast numbers of neo-nazis probably like ice cream. I’m a big believer in ice cream; does that make me a fascist?
No need to actually answer that. I’m just pointing out absurdity by being absurd.
luminous, did you realize the SAT was created originally as an IQ test, on the belief that different races had different IQ, without regard to education or will to learn? Also, the main proponent of the SAT, Carl Brighan, believed in Eugenics and tight immigration reform to “safeguard Nordic superiority”. Brighan eventually realized his earlier theories were wrong, and denounced them. People can make mistakes. They can be dumb. They can be wrong. But if they write something that makes sense, like the Von Mises link I gave (haven’t read all of it, only half), then how can we deny what they wrote is still relevant and true, although we disagree with the life choices of the person writing it?
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