Meet the New Boss, Same As the Old Boss

“I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!,

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss” – The Who, “We Won’t Get Fooled Again”

What The Who lament here is that despite how things change, they always stay the same. With politics and power, nothing rings more true.

Back in 2006 when President George W. Bush and his free-spending Republican cohorts wanted to raise the debt ceiling, Senator Harry Reid and then-Senator Barack Obama adamantly opposed it:

“Raising the debt limit is the last thing we should do. It would weaken the country. It would hurt the economy.” He said, “If my Republican friends believe that increasing our debt by almost $800 billion today and more than three trillion over the last five years is the right thing to do, they should be up front about it. They should explain why they think more debt is good for the economy. How can the Republican majority in this Congress explain to their constituents that trillions of dollars in new debt is good for our economy? How can they explain that they think it’s fair to force our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren to finance this debt through higher taxes? That’s what it will have to be. Why is it right to increase our nation’s dependence on foreign credit?” – Sen. Harry Reid, 2006

Sounds like Senator Reid is a Tea Partier, talking about how we shouldn’t finance debt through higher taxes especially when the burden will fall on our progeny and is dependent on foreign credit. Then-Senator Obama had even sharper words for the commander-in-chief that now sound comically ironic:

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. 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. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.” – Sen. Barack Obama, 2006

Of course, raising the debt limit passed in 2006 by a vote of 52-48 with no Democratic support. But now it’s 2011. Sen. Obama is president and it’s his Democratic agenda on the chopping block. So President Obama, Senator Reid and the Democrats support raising the debt ceiling. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on the debt ceiling increase