Raising the debt ceiling is not a new thing. Neither is voting along party lines. It was raised yearly during G.W. Bush's term from 2002 to 2007. I have not seen any of the Conservatives, now upset about the deficit, questioned about these increases and why they used to support them.
This is from a blog post by Donny Shaw for Open Congress (italics for text underlined by the author)
A Brief History of Debt Limit Votes in the House
We already know that the House Republicans support increasing the debt limit. All but four of them recently voted in favor of a budget blueprint that calls for adding $9 trillion to the debt subject to limit over the next decade. Yet somehow they have convinced Obama and the Democrats that they have to get something in return, like spending cuts that make tax increases less likely, in exchange for actually voting for the debt limit increase they’ve already endorsed.
Shaw has a great
chart with the amount of the debt limit and how House Republicans voted on it from 1997 to 2009. Also if you follow the numbers of votes on the chart they link to how both parties voted. For example, in 2003 all but one Democrat voted against raising the debt ceiling (knowing they were in the minority), but it was carried by the Republican majority.
Some quotes from a CRS (Congressional Research Service) Report prepared for Congress. This is a link to a chart showing the changes in the amount of the deficit from the report. It shows that the debt limit was not raised from 1997 to 2001.
The Debt Limit Issue in 2002
Accumulating debt in government accounts produced most of the pressure on the debt limit that occurred early in 2002. As deficits reemerged in FY2002, increases in debt held by the public added to the pressure on the debt limit in the spring of 2002. During the four fiscal years with surpluses (FY1998-FY2001), the increases in federally held debt and decreases in debt held by the public produced a net increase of $405 billion in total debt subject to limit. At the beginning of FY2002 (October 1, 2001), debt subject to limit was within $217 billion of the existing $5.95 trillion debt limit.20 Between then and the end of May 2002, debt subject to limit increased by another $217 billion, divided between a $117 billion increase in debt held by government accounts and a $100 billion increase in debt held by the public, putting the debt close to the $5.95 trillion limit.
In the fall of 2001, the Administration recognized that a deteriorating budget outlook and continued growth in debt held by government accounts were likely to lead to the debt limit soon being reached. In early December 2001, it asked Congress to raise the debt limit by $750 billion to $6.7 trillion. As the debt moved closer to and reached the debt limit over the first six months of FY2002, the Administration asked Congress repeatedly to increase the debt limit, warning of adverse financial consequences were the limit not raised.
Why isn't anyone looking at all the deficit spending during the Bush years? Maybe because the spending was for the Bush tax cut class.