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In a press release explaining his vote for the Boehner bill to raise the debt ceiling, Frank Guinta pulled out one of the ubiquitous GOP talking points.
"This evening I voted against a blank check for the President..."
Someone please ask Guinta to reread the U.S. Constitution. Congress has the sole power to appropriate money. Congress determines spending. It's disingenuous and deceptive to say raising the debt ceiling gives President Obama a “blank check.”
This is a straight-up lie. Not the everyday, casual fudging that politicians do, but a straight up lie. As the Government Accountability Office explains: “The debt limit does not control or limit the ability of the federal government to run deficits or incur obligations. Rather, it is a limit on the ability to pay obligations already incurred.”
This isn’t a perfect metaphor, but not raising the debt ceiling is more like refusing to pay your credit card bill than it is akin to asking for a blank check. Congress appropriates funds; if they don’t want Obama to spend more, it’s within Congress’s power to withhold that money. That’s you know, in the Constitution. I believe the GOP insisted on it being read at the beginning of the 112th Congress, but they don’t seem to have been paying attention.
