Frugality Is a Virtue, but Politics Rule the Debt-Limit Fight

By JOHN HARWOOD
NYT

The president needed an increase in the federal debt limit. His partisan adversary, a powerful Ohio congressman, wanted something in return: deep spending cuts.

The president was Richard M. Nixon, the congressman was Charles A. Vanik and the year was 1970. Mr. Vanik, a Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, did not win his $6 billion in spending cuts (equivalent to $34 billion today).

But Congress raised the debt limit anyway — as it has 78 times since 1960 in what has become a familiar Washington ritual. This spring, the debt limit has become a burden that
President Obama, Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and the Senate Democratic leader,
Harry Reid of Nevada, must share, even as they joust over the terms.

Leaders in both parties loathe the action as the ultimate thankless obligation. It collides directly with the oft-ignored American instinct that “frugality is an enriching virtue,” in the words of

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