Debt Ceiling Debate: Democrats Won’t Even Vote For Their Own Ideas!

Late on Tuesday the GOP led House of Representatives defeated a vote to raise the debt ceiling. This is not a surprising vote, to be sure, but the odd part of this deal is that some Democrats voted with Republicans even after sending a letter to Obama only a month ago saying they supported raising it.

In mid April, 114 Democrats sent a letter to President Obama pledging their support for a “clean extension of the debt ceiling.”

These 114 Democrats agreed with Obama that the debt ceiling needed to be raised without adding spending cuts to the bill and that anyone that wants to force spending cuts to be added to the bill would be “willfully risking the full faith and credit of the United States of America.” It was an emergency, they claimed.

Yet, as today came and the first vote to raise the debt ceiling without adding any spending cuts to the bill was called, 29 of those very Democrats that signed the letter voted against a clean raise of the debt ceiling. Another five voted “present” essentially ducking the vote.

So, in just one month these Democrats went from claiming that it was a financial emergency to vote “yes” on a clean raising of the debt ceiling to vote “no” on just such a bill!

In fact, 82 Democrats voted with the Republicans to down a clean raise of the debt ceiling after months of of their party claiming that a clean raise is what was needed.

How exactly do you deal with a party that changes its mind every month or so?

Democrat letter signer vote list:

Voting “Present”:
1. Doggett (Texas)
2. Hinchey (N.Y.)
3. Johnson (Ga.)
4. Kaptur (Ohio)
5. Meeks (N.Y.)

Voting “No”:
1. Baca (Calif.)
2. Baldwin (Wis.)
3. Boswell (Iowa)
4. Brown (Fla.)
5. Butterfield (N.C.)
6. Capps (Calif.)
7. Carnahan (Mo.)
8. Cicilline (R.I.)
9. Conyers (Mich.)
10. Costello (Ill.)
11. Critz (Pa.)
12. Cummings (Md.)
13. DeFazio (Ore.)
14. Deutch (Fla.)
15. Hastings (Fla.)
16. Inslee (Wash.)
17. Israel (N.Y.)
18. Keating (Mass.)
19. Lewis (GA.)
20. Peterson (Minn.)
21. Polis (Colo.)
22. Rangel (N.Y.)
23. Richardson (Calif.)
24. Ryan (Ohio)
25. Slaughter (N.Y.)
26. Sutton (Ohio)
27. Thompson (Calif.)
28. Wu (Ore.)
29. Scott (Ga.)

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