While most in DC are paying attention to the recent Senate GOP win in MA, or are trying to game out the next move on the Health Care debate in Congress, not much is being said about the Senate Majority Leader’s unlimited credit card. You see the Senate is debating the debt limit increase which was passed last Spring by the House of Representatives. However, as the year went on, the Majority Leader decided that increasing the debt would be a tough vote to ask his members to cast, especially if he was going to be put in a position to ask them to take that vote twice in the same year. So, he put the House Speaker on notice that when the Senate considered the increase in the debt, he was going to offer an amdt. that would increase it so much that they would not blow through the money in 2010 and thus trigger a second painful debt increase vote, especially right before the November elections. When this discussion took place, the Speaker was angry that her members would also have to vote again on the Reid amdt increase. Nonetheless, she agreed to the idea hoping to save help her members from themselves as they run for reelection this November.

The Federal debt limit increase is now pending on the Senate floor. This is necessary in order for the Federal Government to have money to pay all its bills that are coming due. The bill that the House passed increased our debt (level of borrowing) by $635B. Remember, Senator Reid said he wanted to amend this bill to up that increase enough so a second vote would not be triggered because of huge Federal spending right before the 2010 elections. Most thought that the Reid amdt would  increase the debt another $400B-$600B.  Nope, the Reid amdt, which he unveiled last week on the Senate floor, is an increase of $1.2 Trillion. That’s right, $1.2 Trillion over the $635B that the House bill contained last Spring. That is a total increase of almost $1.9 Trillion. I wonder how much spending the Senate Majority Leader is planning on having the Federal Government do in 2010? Stimulus #2 or #3 maybe, right before the elections, or more stimulus money given out to Congressional districts that don’t exist. Just seems to this writer that the credit card we are handing the Congressional Democrats & POTUS has a bottomless credit limit. I don’t know about you but the children in America are getting tired of being used as an ATM machine by those presently running the government in DC. 

Elizabeth Letchworth is the Owner-Founder of GradeGov.com, 4 times elected United States Senate Secretary for the Majority/Minority, U. S. Senate-retired, presently senior legislative advisor @ Covington & Burling, LLC