Despite recent rhetoric from GOP lawmakers, Republican presidents have raised the statutory limit on U.S. debt by a much greater percentage than either of the two Democrats elected since 1981. According an analysis of historical data compiled on the statutory limit by the Office of Management and Budget, former President Ronald Reagan outstrips all other executives to date, increasing the debt ceiling by 199.5 percent during his eight years in office. He is followed by President George W. Bush, Jr. at a 90.2 percent increase over eight years and by President George H. Bush, Sr. at a 48.0 percent increase over only four years in office.

Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, on the other hand, have only raised the debt ceiling by 43.6 and 26.3 percent, respectively. It remains to be seen whether or not Congress will reach a compromise and pass legislation to increase the statutory limit again by the Aug. 2 deadline issued by the U.S. Treasury. Even if Congress does pass the proposed $2.4-trillion increase, Obama will still be looking at a total increase of 47.5 percent over his first term — less than half of the increase that Reagan oversaw during his first four years. See the OMB’s historical figures charted:

–Sarah Bufkin

In 2008, Milwaukee, Wisconsin became the third U.S. city — after San Francisco and Washington, DC — to require paid sick leave for workers, thanks to a referendum overwhelmingly approved by the city’s voters. However, back in May, Wisconsin’s Republican legislature passed, and notoriously anti-worker Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) signed, a bill that took away the ability of cities to decide for themselves whether they want to mandate paid sick leave.

The sick days law has been tied up in the courts ever since, but yesterday, the Milwaukee County Circuit Court officially said that the state is within its rights to nullify Milwaukee’s law:

After three years of legal and political wrangling over the Milwaukee paid sick-day law that voters approved but business groups denounced, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Cooper declared Thursday afternoon: “It’s over.”

In doing so he found the city law, passed by 69% of voters in November 2008 and upheld by the state Court of Appeals in March, was moot because of state legislation approved in April that voided it.

“I don’t feel real good about how this happened politically,” he said in announcing his ruling.

Judge Cooper said the bill was perfectly targeted to negate Milwaukee’s paid sick days law. “You put a bull’s-eye on paid sick days,” he said. The ruling comes on the heels of a few wins by proponents of paid sick days, as Connecticut became the first state to require them and residents of Denver got the issue onto November’s ballot. Philadelphia’s city council also approved a sick days bill recently, only to see it vetoed by Mayor Michael Nutter.

At the moment, the U.S. is all alone in the industrialized world in not mandating some form of paid time off for workers, and the U.S. economy as a whole loses $180 billion in productivity annually due to sick employees attending work and infecting other workers. Lack of sick days is a particularly acute problem in the food services industry (where sick workers attending work is obviously even more problematic). It’s a shame that the anti-worker fervor of Wisconsin’s Republicans goes so far as to nullify a law that the people of Milwaukee clearly wanted.

Even as the GOP leadership is caving to the outrageous demands of Tea Party members, some Republicans are also becoming more amenable to Democrats’ insistence that there be a long-term debt ceiling increase that goes through the 2012 election. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) reiterated today that the Democratic caucus is completely opposed to a short-term deal that would force Congress to raise the debt limit again in six months, when political divisions will be even more stark because of the upcoming election.

Republicans had initially insisted on a short-term increase, but today on MSNBC, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) conceded that it wouldn’t be “healthy” to have to go through this excruciating process again in six months — something the latest version of Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) plan still requires:

CORKER: I would love to see us go ahead and achieve all the savings that we can get right now…But I do agree with the fact that having these debates in the middle of the economic downturn that we’re having right now is not healthy. And there’s no question that business people…watch this and become uncertain. So in a perfect world, and I know we’re not in a perfect world, but if we can get worked out over the next several days something that actually achieves all those savings on the front end and also extends the debt limit beyond this next election, to me that would be the perfect solution, and I hope we can do that.

Watch it:

Corker’s position was echoed by a Senate GOP leadership aide who told CNBC’s John Harwood that the party would be comfortable extending the debt ceiling past the 2012 elections, “provided that they had some sort of guarantee that a second round of spending cuts and entitlement reforms would take place.”

The Huffington Post notes that “the softening of the Senate GOP’s position is a breakthrough of sorts in the debt ceiling debate.” Republicans have been arguing that they will only approve a short-term increase because Congress has traditionally voted for small incremental raises. But that’s not actually true: in May 2003, Congress passed the equivalent of an 18-month increase, putting the issue off past the 2004 elections. That extension was roughly the same length of time of the increase President Obama is requesting. Twenty GOP senators currently in Congress voted for that 2003 bill.

House Republicans met today in an attempt to scrape together votes to pass House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) plan for raising the debt ceiling. Boehner pulled the bill from the floor last night when it became apparent that he didn’t have to votes to proceed, and has made it even more right-wing today in an attempt to drum up support.

As we’ve been noting, Boehner’s plan would batter the social safety net, forcing trillions of dollars in entitlement cuts and the passage of a balanced budget amendment, in order to raise the debt ceiling again when such a move becomes necessary in six months. As the New York Times put it, “Because the first round of cuts [in Boehner's plan] would eviscerate discretionary programs…the second round of cuts would need to come from Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other safety-net programs. To get cuts that deep in 10 years would require cutting the benefits of current retirees and beneficiaries or gutting health care reform, or savaging the safety net for low-income Americans, or some combination of the three.”

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Boehner’s plan could cause one of the most dramatic increases in poverty and hardship of any law in history. Boehner’s bill actually eliminates a 26-year-old measure protecting the poor from budget cuts. This would have an adverse effect all across the country, including in Boehner’s district where, as Half in Ten’s Melissa Boteach and Jessica Liu found, hundreds of thousands of people rely on the social safety net that Boehner wants to eviscerate:

– 180,000 people are on Medicare or Medicaid, comprising 27 percent of his district.

– 4,000 households access some form of public housing assistance.

– 90,000 or 13.9 percent of the district lives below the poverty line.

– Approximately 70,000 households receive Social Security benefits.

– Over 30,000 households are eligible for the SNAP (food stamp) program and 20,000 low-income children are eligible for food and nutrition services.

“The House plan would result in an enormous increase in poverty and hardship while keeping Congress mired in a never-ending debate over default crises instead of a focus on jobs,” Boteach and Liu wrote. And Boehner’s constituents would certainly not be spared the pain.

The congressional debate over various deficit-cutting plans appears to have reached a stalemate, with the plans from both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) currently lacking the votes they need to pass the House of Representatives.

However, a special vote count conducted by ThinkProgress found that there are more than enough votes for a third option — a clean debt ceiling hike. ThinkProgress has concluded that there are 267 votes in the House for a clean hike, with almost all Democrats in support and a large number of Republicans. Here are the Republicans we have found who support a clean debt hike:

Rep. Jo Bonner (R-AL)	Rep. Michael (Mike) Rogers (R-AL)	Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL)
Rep. Spencer Bachus, III (R-AL)	Rep. Donald (Don) Young (R-AK)	Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ)
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)	Rep. Walter (Wally) Herger (R-CA)	Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA)	Rep. Howard (Buck) McKeon (R-CA)	Rep. David Dreier (R-CA)
Rep. Edward (Ed) Royce (R-CA)	Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)	Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA)
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)	Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA)	Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)	Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL)	Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-FL)
Rep. Clifford (Cliff) Stearns (R-FL)	Rep. John Mica (R-FL)	Rep. C. W. Bill Young (R-FL)
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)	Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)	Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA)
Rep. John (Phil) Gingrey (R-GA)	Rep. Michael (Mike) Simpson (R-ID)	Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL)
Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-IL)	Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL)	Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN)
Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN)	Rep. Thomas (Tom) Latham (R-IA)	Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
Rep. Edward (Ed) Whitfield (R-KY)	Rep. Harold (Hal) Rogers (R-KY)	Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
Rep. David (Dave) Camp (R-MI)	Rep. Frederick (Fred) Upton (R-MI)	Rep. Michael (Mike) Rogers (R-MI)
Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI)	Rep. Thaddeus (Thad) McCotter (R-MI)	Rep. John Kline (R-MN)
Rep. W. Todd Akin (R-MO)	Rep. Samuel (Sam) Graves (R-MO)	Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
Rep. Dennis (Denny) Rehberg (R-MT)	Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE)	Rep. Charles (Charlie) Bass (R-NH)
Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ)	Rep. Christopher (Chris) Smith (R-NJ)	Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)	Rep. Peter (Pete) King (R-NY)	Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC)
Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC)	Rep. Steven (Steve) Chabot (R-OH)	Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH)
Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)	Rep. Patrick (Pat) Tiberi (R-OH)	Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH)
Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK)	Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK)	Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK)
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR)	Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA)	Rep. William (Bill) Shuster, Jr. (R-PA)
Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA)	Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA)	Rep. Todd Platts (R-PA)
Rep. Addison (Joe) Wilson (R-SC)	Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)	Rep. Samuel (Sam) Johnson (R-TX)
Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX)	Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)	Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)
Rep. John Culberson (R-TX)	Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX)	Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX)
Rep. William (Mac) Thornberry (R-TX)	Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)	Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX)	Rep. John Carter (R-TX)	Rep. Peter (Pete) Sessions (R-TX)
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT)	Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-VA)	Rep. Robert (Bob) Goodlatte (R-VA)
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)	Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA)	Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)
Rep. Shelley Capito (R-WV)	Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)	Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI)
Rep. Thomas (Tom) Petri (R-WI)	Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL)

The list includes 98 House Republicans. In addition to these Republicans, there is support for a clean hike from 169 Democrats. This means that a clean debt ceiling bill could net 267 votes — 51 votes more than House leadership needs to raise the debt ceiling and avoid catastrophe.*

*Just kidding — kind of. ThinkProgress tabulated this vote count by looking at debt ceiling votes in 2004, where 98 currently serving House Republicans voted for a clean debt ceiling hike, and 2009, where 169 currently serving House Democrats voted for a clean debt ceiling hike. Additionally, 31 Senate Republicans voted for such a hike in 2004. All of these Members of Congress can vote for a clean hike again and avert disaster — saving discussions about deficit reduction (and more importantly, jobs) for appropriations debates that take place once America’s financial future is safe. They’ve done it before, and they can possibly do it again.