Critique on Opinion Article.

In the opinion piece entitled: Obama Rewrites Debt-Limit History, authors Kevin Hasset and Abby McCloskey take a look at President Obama and the debt-ceiling.  Washington is closing in on reaching the debt-limit and Congress has yet to pass any bill to raise the ceiling.  House Republicans have conditions to be included in such a bill in order for their support.  The President claims that the behavior of the house is unacceptable and that they’re trying to extort him by threatening default.  President Obama, along with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, expressed to the media that this kind of political tactic hasn't been done before and that Congress has routinely passed a debt-ceiling increase with no strings attached.

  The authors attack the Presidents claim with two different sets of arguments.  They argue that Congress indeed has frequently and often passed debt-ceiling hikes, but the majority of those times the bill included different legislative conditions.  The next argument is that it is the Democratic Party who has used debt-ceiling limitations as leverage the most times out of the two parties.

This opinion piece was well written and I would say slightly geared towards right wingers.  Both the authors presented clear arguments and provided data to support their argument.  The article includes information on them stating Hasset is the director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.  McCloskey is also with the American Enterprise Institute where she is a program director.  What’s important to understand about this piece is that the authors aren't necessarily blaming the Democratic Party for our current governmental issues.  What they are doing is challenging the justification of finger pointing at the House Republicans.  Clearly they feel that the President is trying to essentially demonize the Republicans for doing what they've done time and time again over the past four decades.