A Brief History of Debt Limit Votes in the HouseMay 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 mem