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Washington DC Jul 16, 2011. President Obama’s economic advisor Austin Goolsbee said last week that a refusal by the Senate to increase the government’s debt ceiling (currently $14.3 trillion) would be “catastrophic” and a sign of “insanity.”



And that isn't the position the president has held in the past. When President Obama was in the Senate, he thought raising the debt ceiling was a bad idea.



Here are Obama’s thoughts on the debt limit in 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 depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

In 2007 and in 2008, when the Senate voted to increase the limit by $850 billion and $800 billion respectively, Obama did not bother to vote. (He did vote for TARP, which increased the debt limit by $700 billion.)



President Obama was right when he said that in 2006. Borrowing more money to pay your routine bills is a sure sign you are spending too much.  The President voted against raising the debt ceiling when GW Bush was President, but now that he holds that job he has had second thoughts.



 White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president now views that vote as a "mistake."



"He now believes it was a mistake," Carney said. He said Obama understands that senators want to make it clear when they disagree with the administration but that there are other ways to go about doing it.



He said the debt ceiling vote is not something Washington "can play around with," warning that a failure to lift the cap would be "Armageddon-like" for the economy.