Speaking on the floor of the U.S. House on Tuesday, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) suggested that President Obama is not being treated fairly in the debt ceiling negotiations because of his race.
Pointing out that the debt limit has been raised 60 times, as Jackson Lee and many other members of the Black community see it, Republicans have given Obama a difficult time to get this done.
From the floor of the House of Representatives, Jackson Lee said:
“I do not understand what I think is the maligning and maliciousness [toward] this president. Why is he different?…In the minority community, that is the question that is being raised. Why is this president being treated so disrespectfully? Why has the debt limit been raised 60 times? Why did the leader of the Senate continually talk about his job is to bring the president down to make sure he is unelected?….I am particularly sensitive to the fact that only this president — only this one, only this one — has received the kind of attacks and disagreement and inability to work, only this one…. Read between the lines. What is different about this president that should put him in a position that he should not receive the same kind of respectful treatment when it is necessary to raise the debt limit in order to pay our bills, something required by both statute and the 14th amendment?”
