The Lame 'Congress Must Pay Its Bills' Line

Former President Bill Clinton recently parroted a line that President Barack Obama likes to drag out whenever the debt ceiling deadline looms–that Congress must “pay its bills.” It is one of the most cynical and insidious lies in American politics and deserves to be utterly blown apart, with prejudice.

The irony–amply demonstrated this time around, when the debt ceiling and budget battles coincide–is that whenever the House of Representatives tries to cut down the country’s bills, even modestly, Obama and the Democrats threaten a parade of horribles and warn of the prospect of a government shutdown.

It is also worth noting that President Obama has never given Congress a budget that reduces spending or balances revenues and outlays. And the Democrat-controlled Senate has ignored its legal responsibility to pass a budget of any kind. So much for Democrat interest in paying, much less reducing, America’s bills.

It takes some brass, to quote a Clinton line much beloved by the media, to threaten people into borrowing money, then threaten them again when they try not to borrow any more. Regardless of the outcome of the current Obamacare battle, it is well past time to call out Clinton and Obama’s dishonest thuggery on debt.